His Thief, Her Hitter
by MacyBear17
Summary: A series of prompt based fics focused on everyone's favorite thief and hitter. This is where you choose what get written...
1. Prologue and Guidelines

_**Hi Guys!...**_

_**First off, Thanks to all of you who got back to me with awesome prompts... I am gonna be putting my responses up fairly regularly and I am definitely gonna try and respond to all the prompts in the order i received them.**_

_**I think I am done jabbering on for now, I'll let you proceed on to the actual chapters... If you want to go read some fiction now, check the following chapters... if however, you want to send in a prompt for me to write, I suggest you first glance through the paragraph underneath... Happy reading!**_

_**Lotsa luv**_

_**Macybear**_

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><p><strong>I've been reading some truly fantastic fiction in this fandom and I came across the concept of doing prompt based drabbles... And obviously, my muse, totally wants to do it too. I've never written prompt based stuff before and I hope that i am able to do justice to it. But I am gonna need your help by way of giving me awesome prompts that you've always wanted to read in this fandom...<strong>

**Just to setup some ground rules before we get further**

**1. I don't do M rated stuff**

**2. I won't be writing slash... ever. So no E/H, E/N or S/P.**

**3. The prompts can be a word, a phrase or a situation... anything you like... the crazier the better plz... ;P**

**4. You can also choose the number of words I have to write your little ficlet in and the chapter will be dedicated to the person who sent me that prompt.**

**5. I love Eliot/Parker... So most of my fics are going to end up with that focus...**

**Please Please Please don't make me write Parker/Hardison... But I will if I have to... Just can't assure you that it will be pretty**

**6. All prompts can be sent to me via review for this story or through PM's**

**So now that we've all gone through the boring stuff, I hope you guys get into the spirit of things and send me some truly awesome prompts... My other stories will keep getting their regular updates... Promise... :D But I will try and write drabbles for all the prompts I get...**

**Lotsa luv and fortune cookies :)**

**Macybear**


	2. Dealing with the Feeling

_**A/N : Hi guys! Here's the first chapter of our E/P drabble fest... The first prompt I received was from SharkGurl... _**Thanks a lot for the encouragement and idea. **_  
><strong>_

_**She said : YAY! More Eliot/Parker, I swear, the people on the show seriously need to realize they belong together lol. Any way, how about Eliot gets jealous and realizes his feelings for Parker?**_

_**So this one's for you SharkGurl... Hope you enjoy...**_

_**But before we get to the fic, I have to tell you guys this... It started as a simple enough drabble but has been growing like a monster. I have no idea how it became this, but i really hope you guys like it. SharkGurl, I don't know if this is what you wanted but I really really hope that you like this ficlet that is dedicated to you. **_

_**Read and Review guys... :) Now, on with it.**_

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><p>"Here you go Eliot"<p>

The pretty redheaded bartender placed another cold, brown bottle of beer in front of Eliot before she returned to serving her other customers. There weren't many others at the bar at this time of the day... or should I say night.

"Thanks Lily"

"Always a pleasure servin' you handsome..."

The redhead always had a smile and a retort ready and Eliot quite liked her. In another life, he might even have flirted with her, inevitably ending with the two of them spending the night in his refurbished farmhouse.

Whatever Hardison said, not always did his good looks and bad boy attitude get him the girl, but they worked often enough to let Eliot have the fun he wanted to while not having to attach himself to anyone in any way. His lifestyle and his job just didn't allow such things as relationships... or at least that was what he told himself. Not that he'd ever been tempted to break his 'no second date' rule.

Looking back at the table where his team had been sitting two minutes ago, Eliot was surprised to find that the only one at that table now was the mastermind, staring absentmindedly into a cup of coffee. Scanning the bar, he found Hardison at a pool table in one corner, trying to chat up a couple of giggly girls. Who knew what he was sayin' to them but somehow the girls seemed to be lapping it up so Eliot had to give it to the hacker... he wasn't completely incompetent.

Sophie was found more easily, as the grifter had taken up a seat next to him at the bar and seemed to be enjoying her gin and tonic. It was Parker. It was always Parker that went missing. It was always the blonde thief that the hitter had to spend half the day searching and worrying about. Sigh... This was why he worked alone. No team meant no one else to worry about, no one else to protect and certainly no one else who dictated what you did with your life.

But fortunately for the others and he wasn't entirely sure about whether it was unfortunate for him or not yet, he'd gotten used to caring about them, worrying about them and protecting them by now. Eliot knew that he would gladly give up him own life if it saved the life of any one of them in return... Especially Parker. And he didn't know exactly why that 'especially' was there and when the hell this had happened, whatever 'this' was.

Like now, he was automatically searching for her. Not only because he wanted to make sure she wasn't getting into trouble on his watch... there was that. But there was also some sort of weird possessiveness for her that was running through his veins nowadays. It drove him crazy because he'd never felt it before... with anybody. Not even Aimee had made him feel this way and the most frustrating thing was, he wasn't even sure why he was trying to compare these feelings with those associated with Aimee because there was no way in hell he was falling for the twenty pounds of crazy that was Parker.

Lately, he didn't want to, but found that his eyes automatically searched for her, the two of them seemed to be aware of each other even when they weren't even trying to, her fidgety presence at his side calmed him down and he was the one she came to whenever she had trouble... the physical as well as the emotional type. Not that he ever knew how to deal with most of the people trouble she had cuz he himself wasn't too hot in that area, preferring to intimidate or bash some heads instead of talking his way out of things like Sophie or Nate.

Right now though, Eliot was still scanning the rather dimly lit room, trying to find the flash of blonde hair he knew so well, his pulse ratcheting up every second he couldn't. Absently, he felt Sophie sidle up to him, following his minute movements with an amused smile on her face.

"She's at the back right corner. Next to the jukebox"

Even as he felt his muscles relax involuntarily at the information, Eliot turned to glare at the grifter, trying unsuccessfully to stop her from carrying this further. Sophie was thoroughly enjoying this and Eliot knew that he was in for some emotional dissection. Fortifying himself with another sip of beer, the hitter turned unwillingly to the talented grifter who now looked like the cat that ate the canary.

"What? I just told you where she was. Stop glaring at me... Both of us know that you were looking for her. You always look for her."

As always, the grifter liked to end her sentences with some or the other barb , baiting the person opposite her into either confirming or denying her allegation, thus drawing them into the conversation and making them reveal things to her that they might never have otherwise. Eliot knew this trick of hers very well, but knowing it didn't mean not responding to it. Tonight, Eliot was tired... he was tired of always being on alert, always being on the go. So he just decided to let the brunette have her fun... just this once.

"And what do you mean by that?"

"Oh come on Eliot... You know what I meant. There's no point in hiding it and there's actually no need to hide it you know."

"Sophie, I've absolutely no idea what you're talkin' about"

Part of it was true, he had no idea what she was alluding to... but he did know that she was talking about his feelings (dammit! It was difficult to even say that word) for Parker. Not that he was admitting that he had any feelings... for Parker... or anyone else.

"Eliot, I am a thief. Okay?... I read people for a living and I know when I am being lied to. I know that you know exactly what I was talking about and uhhh... It is so frustrating that you are not doing anything about it. I can only tell you something Eliot... I can't physically make you do anything"

"There's nothin' to do anythin' about here Sophie. So I suggest that you just let this go... and find someone else to read."

Eliot figured that she would need more persuasion to let this go but to his surprise, the grifter just gave a huff of disapproval and sashayed away. What he didn't notice while his head was turned the other way was that Sophie made a beeline to the blonde thief standing by the jukebox at the corner and the two women started talking up a storm... all in whispers.

Had Eliot been privy to this information, he might've caught on to Sophie's plan and reacted differently, however slightly, cuz he didn't know if he could control his feelings or reactions when it came to Parker. But as it was, the hitter had no idea what was about to befall him and sat there, nursing his beer as the tiny thief approached some random guy sitting at the bar a couple of seats down from where he was. The stage had been set with the audience in mind, providing a ring side seat to Eliot for the drama that was unfolding right in front of his eyes.

As he looked up, he saw a smiling Parker making her way towards a sandy haired guy sitting at the bar some distance away. There was something different about her, but he couldn't pinpoint what it was. She definitely wasn't smiling her patented Parker 'crazy' smile now, nor was it a 'I like blowing up things' smile or a 'I just stole a billion dollar artifact from a super secure museum exhibit' smile.

Which was curious cuz Eliot hadn't even known that he knew and could differentiate between all of Parker's different smiles. He refused to start contemplating what that meant, because that would mean he would've to think about his feelings for the thief and he wasn't gonna step into that... ever.

Work and feelings never went hand in hand, never mind the fact that theirs was a weird work atmosphere and a completely different sort of team. A voice from the region of his heart tried to argue that Nate and Sophie seemed to work well together, even with their sticky emotional situations now and then, but Eliot firmly gagged it by saying that Nate and Sophie were weird and probably exceptions to every rule and assumption in the book. And he stoically refused to listen to that voice again when it said that he and Parker were just as weird and could probably work at least as well as Nate and Sophie did.

Eliot was pulled suddenly from his uncomfortable musings by an even more uncomfortable sight in front of him. Parker, usually the definition of 'crazy', was being utterly normal and flirty around the guy she'd been talking to at the bar. And what was more, the dweeb was flirting back. He knew that Parker wasn't as clueless as usual because she seemed to be holding her own, flirting back at him with everything in her, thoroughly enjoying the poor guy's reactions while she pick pocketed his wallet about half a dozen times, pulling it off him and putting it back, as if it was one of those habits people had... like twirling their hair or tapping their fingers.

If he hadn't been trying not to punch the clueless jerk who was flirting with her into oblivion, Eliot would've laughed at that... It was just the perfect crazy Parker thing to do. Eliot tried his best not to be very obvious about wanting to pound on the guy but as it was, Parker was making it very, very difficult for him. Her hand was now stroking up and down jerkface's arm lightly and she was laughing at all his stupid jokes.

The hitter could literally feel his blood boiling as whatsisname touched Parker's hair and pushed one strand back behind her ear. Eliot totally expected Parker to flinch away... he knew that she didn't like it when people touched her. She was like him when it came to that. But now, she didn't seem to mind. That could mean only one of two things. Either Parker was acting... or she really liked this guy. And there was no reason for her to act now... or at least that was what he thought.

Which pointed in the direction of the answer that Parker somehow, he had no idea why... I mean that guy was positively scrawny, there was no way he could protect her if necessary... But yeah... it seemed as though however stupid, Parker genuinely liked him. And Eliot didn't like that answer one bit. He could feel his muscles tensing, his fists clenching and unclenching with the effort he was pouring into not getting up off his bar stool and drop kicking that guy into tomorrow and letting everyone know that Parker was his.

Wait What?... Where did that come from?... Parker wasn't _his_... She wasn't some sort of property that he could claim his ownership over. And he was sure that she definitely wouldn't appreciate if he did that... in fact, she might just kick his ass for it. That was his thief... the Parker he knew and lo- Oh shit.

Wasn't that great?... He'd gone and done that one thing that he'd sworn he wouldn't do, especially after Aimee. But did he listen to himself? The answer would be a big, fat NO. Couldn't he even realize it before he was in fathoms deep?... At least he could've tried and protected himself and his feelings from getting too entangled with the crazy blonde, a road he'd been sure would lead to disaster. But now that he was already miles down that road, he wasn't so sure it was so bad.

What Parker seemed to be doing right now wasn't doing anything good for Eliot... and if she kept this up, soon, it wouldn't be doing anything good for whatsisname too. Everything... the way she was standing so close to him, the way she was touching his arm, the way that guy was smiling up at her and touching her hand in return... everything was getting his temper flaring.

By now, Eliot wasn't even thinking, analyzing why he was feeling this way... that required too much effort. Effort he couldn't spare because he was too busy trying to control his more... violent tendencies. He'd already worked out a hundred different ways he could kill the fellow without making too much of a mess. No kidding... A hundred ways... oh wait... make that a hundred and one. Hmmm... he hadn't used that for a long time, maybe since that thing in Chile with the emerald dolphins. Now that, had been awesome. It had been too long and he was becoming soft... too bad he couldn't use some of his better moves on dumbo here.

Okay. So distracting himself by thinking up ways of killing Mr. perfect here wasn't working. He was just about to get up and make his way out of the bar, to try and get his temper in check when he felt a decidedly feminine hand on his shoulder. Knowing that no one other than Sophie and Parker would dare to touch him while he was in such a mood, and since Parker was still in front of him, flirting with whatsisface over there, Eliot sighed

"Shhh... just sit here and watch the fun. I am a very good teacher if I might say so myself."

The hitter stiffened and turned to glare a force 10 glare at the grifter. Had it been anyone else, they'd have been shaking in their boots, but the grifter seemed almost unaffected. Now he understood why Parker was having no trouble with the flirting and touching and stuff... He'd been masterfully played by the grifter. She must've told Parker to go flirt with some random guy at the bar so that she could see how the hitter reacted and he'd fallen for it... hook, line and sinker. Told you he was getting too soft for his own good.

But there was nothing he could do about it now. Not the anger coursing through him at the sight of his gi- Parker with another man, not the feelings of... dare he say it, jealousy at that and definitely not the victorious smirk gracing Sophie's face now. But he couldn't work out why Parker would agree to doing something like this. She'd never liked grifting before for the cons and they weren't even on a job right now. For her to agree to act, and with such effort put in, Eliot had to wonder why she was doing what she was doing

"Why would Parker agree to this?"

Sophie looked at him as if he was the biggest idiot in the world before giving one of her patented answers phrased in the form of a question

"Why would she?"

With that, the grifter retreated to the table with Nate, who was still staring into his coffee, leaving Eliot to deal with having revelation after revelation. This one took some thinking and a little bit of time. But Sophie could almost pinpoint the moment when Eliot worked out exactly why Parker would agree to act that way in front of him and she wasn't disappointed when she saw the hitter get up from the bar and make his way to the thief.

All would be well, she knew now. Sighing in pleasure at another job well done, she turned to her boyfriend (ahh!... it felt good to finally acknowledge that... :) ) to find him looking at her with a slightly amused expression

"You think they'll be able to work it out now?... and it won't affect the team?"

Sophie gaped at the mastermind for a whole minute at that. She hadn't thought he'd been paying any attention to his surroundings and the goings on but apparently he had.

"Don't you want them to be happy?... If being with each other makes them happy, it will only benefit the team. Won't it Nate?"

Nate knew that she wasn't talking only about Parker and Eliot now, just as he hadn't been asking about only them earlier. Shaking his head at that, he proceeded to pull his grifter closer, situating her head in the crook of his neck and sitting back, taking a moment or two to relax. The sight unfolding in front of them brought a smile to both their faces, as they saw Eliot approach the twosome at the bar.

There was a short conversation between Eliot and the little blonde, which resulted in the thief launching herself at the hitter, who caught her safely in his arms, smiling as wide as they'd ever seen him smile. Seconds later, the brand new couple (she hoped so) turned around and waved to the rest of the team, before leaving the bar, hands twined, fingers interlaced, their eyes never leaving each others, soft smiles permanently etched on their faces.

Sighing in happiness and what Nate knew to be a little bit of relief (Sophie hadn't been a 100% sure it would work) Sophie snuggled closer into his neck and twining their own fingers, said

"They'll work it out Nate... After all, we did it. And there's no one in this world who's more screwed up than we are. If we can do it right finally, then they can definitely do this right. Besides, they are just perfect for each other Nate. Just see... They're going to be very, very happy. All of us are going to be happy... or as happy as a family of thieves could be"

The cheeky grin that lit up Sophie's face was answered by a softer one from Nate as he leaned down and kissed her lightly before leaning back to watch the hitter and the thief leave the bar

"Yes... We will Sophie. We will..."

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><p><em><strong>AN : Okay guys... so that was it. Hope it was what you wanted SharkGurl... do review your thoughts... I am going to deal with all the prompts I receive in first in first out order... So next in line is 'B's prompt, which, if i might say so myself is very cute and has been extremely fun to write so far... It'll hopefully get done soon, cuz I am in the midst of writing chapters for two other multi-chap leverage fics... chk those out too if you haven't yet. Anyways, I'll try and have those up as soon as I can... till then, stay tuned, keep reading and keep reviewing... you make my day when you review... :)**_

_**lotsa luv and fortune cookies**_

_**Macybear**_


	3. My first Pet

_**A/N : Hello!... Here's the second edition of the prompt based fics... This awesome prompts was sent in by B who wrote :**_

_**E/P- SPCA Parker rescues too many animals and makes (breaks in and leaves them) each of the team take some. 2K words :)**_

_**Sorry B... I don't know if this is quite what you wanted but I hope you like it anyway... and I exceeded your word limit by around 800 words... plz don't mind... anyways, I am blown away by the amazing response to this thing here... I loved getting all those prompts guys... just keep 'em coming and I'll try n get them all out as soon as I can. Review your thoughts about this chapter and others to help me get better... :)**_

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><p>Eliot Spencer wasn't having a good day, and it was only seven in the morning. Even the bike ride down to the offices at Nate's loft didn't do much to make him feel better cuz for the first time in a long time, there wasn't a crazy blonde riding pillion, clutching at him as if she was gonna fall off if she didn't... not that he minded it one bit. He hadn't slept very well the previous night either, also thanks to the crazy blonde... or rather, thanks to the absence of the aforementioned blonde.<p>

Eliot knew that he'd changed a whole lot since he'd started working with the Leverage Associates team. He'd never worked on a team before... none of them had, but now, after a couple of years of working and going through a lot of things together, he couldn't even remember how he'd managed to live and work alone for such a long time.

There were a couple of drawbacks that came along with working as a part of a team... He didn't have the privacy that he'd prized above everything else before. Now, not so much... he actually liked being bugged by Hardison... when that had happened, he had no clue. He had to go along with plans laid down by someone else, something else that he'd never done before.

It helped a lot in the beginning that he'd trusted Nate. Now, Nate numbered among his few close friends, along side Sophie and Hardison. He'd have listed Parker among his short list of friends even a couple of months ago, but now, everyone knew that Parker meant much more to the hitter than just friends. They'd been seeing each other for some time now and Eliot had been surprised at the ease with which both of them, certified loners before, had adjusted to the contours of their relationship. Of course they had their share of arguments and fights, both of them stubborn and strong minded people, but somehow, the arguments managed to get resolved soon enough.

But today, Eliot was antsy for an entirely different reason. The team had just tackled a hard case, this one involving a mafia boss. That guy was crazy about his pets and Nate had chosen that as their way in. Parker and Hardison had had to play roles of people from the SPCA during the con and though everything had worked out in the end, the thief had been quite worried about the animals that had been involved. Eliot hadn't thought much about it when she sneaked out of bed and left the apartment in the middle of the night, but it was almost seven in the morning now and she had yet to show up.

Opting to climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator, Eliot was still worrying about the non-appearance of his girlfriend when he heard something that had him even more worried. A chorus of yaps, barks, mewing and other assorted animal noises... emanating from Nate's apartment.

"Oh no... no no no no... Please god no..."

What he saw when he opened the door to Nate's loft cautiously, would stay with him for the rest of his life, stored away in the corners of his mind, to be called up whenever he felt down or needed to find a happy memory.

He found Parker sitting on Nate's couch, happily talking to a dark grey kitten that was a Chartreux if he wasn't wrong, while surrounded by a variety of puppies, kittens and other small animals. A Belgian mastiff, the size of a coffee table lay by her feet, looking up at her with adoring eyes. There were tiny little fluff balls everywhere, cuddled into her body in the crook of her shoulder, sleeping in her arms, curled up against her legs. With the early morning sun slanting in through the big picture window behind the couch, his little thief looked like the bonafide angel that she'd been mistaken for once.

At the sound of the door closing, Parker looked up to see her hitter step into the apartment, looking like he'd just walked into an episode of the 'Twilight Zone'. Don't ask how she knew about the show, Hardison was a very bad influence sometimes... The hitter's eyes widened as he took in the profusion of small animals everywhere... literally.

"Hey... Eliot"

Somehow, Parker managed to sound happy, anxious and beseeching at the same time while looking like an adorable three year old who you couldn't help but cuddle even after the kid had gone loco with fingerpaints all over your couch. Sighing at the clean up that the whole team would have to get into because of Parker's late night animal rescue run, Eliot stepped inside the living room, already having to step around a sleeping Alaskan Malamute puppy that looked to be about a year old, and went into the kitchen. He needed more than his daily caffeine fix if he was to deal with this first thing in the morning.

Parker followed him anxiously to the kitchen, as he'd known she would. Turning to face her after filling and turning on the coffee maker, Eliot hadn't even opened his mouth to ask her a question when they heard footsteps stumbling down the stairs from the bedroom where Nate slept

"What the- PARKER?"

Cringing at the yell from the mastermind, Parker silently slid behind the solid form of her boyfriend, using him as a shield while pushing him out the kitchen into the living room. Parker knew that Eliot couldn't be pushed around if he didn't want to but she needed him around when she tried to explain her actions because she knew that however screwed up her logic would sound to the others, he always understood her.

Nate's angry eyes softened a little at the sight of the thief hiding behind the hitter and the hitter allowing her to do that. He knew that both Eliot and Parker had been staunch loners, unable to have lasting relationships with normal people, in Parker's case and unwilling to even try to reach out to another person, in Eliot's case. Now as he saw the thief totally comfortable in both the physical and emotional sense around Eliot and how Eliot was completely fine with Parker being her own crazy but adorable self, Nathan Ford was happy that it was finally going right for his team.

But that didn't get them out of the mess that Parker had found fit to get them into. There were animals all over his living room... cute.. little... furballs... come on Nate, focus... right, right. Yeah... there was a huge dog slobbering all over his rug, a couple of squirrels running up and down Hardison's monitors, a kitten trying to make a snack out of the goldfish that he'd paid way more than it was worth...

Eliot followed his eyes and quickly snatched up the brown stripped kitty, holding it against his body and stroking it's head absently as he looked around the house, calculating just how many of the critters were currently calling Nate's loft home. There seemed to be atleast nine different dogs of various ages, four kittens, a really fat cat, a rabbit, a hamster that Nate hadn't seen yet in his cereal cupboard and a chameleon that was currently eying Nate's colorful nightshirt very curiously from it's perch on the chandelier.

There had been a slightly fat cat, that seemed to be older than the rest of the animals. Concerned about its health, Eliot was down on his haunches, inspecting the feline closely when they all heard Sophie and Hardison's voices echoing from down the corridor. All three of them stiffened, bracing themselves for the reaction that they knew was coming. But none of them were ready for what they heard.

For the first minute after the door opened, there was complete and utter silence. As Parker cautiously peeked from behind Nate's couch where she'd been hiding, they all heard high pitched screaming, but surprisingly, it wasn't from the source they'd all expected... Sophie. Hardison seemed to be jumping around, pointing at his shoulder, screaming his lungs off while Sophie was busy scanning the room with wide open eyes.

Belatedly, Parker noticed the chameleon which she'd started calling Pasquale in her mind, happily riding on the hacker's shoulder and handing the kitten in her arms over to a slightly bewildered Nate, she calmly walked over to the younger man and plucked the reptile off his multi colored shirt.

About half an hour, some more screaming, some coaxing and outright threatening later, the team had managed to herd all the animals into one single room and assembled in the briefing area, a couple of critters surrounding each one of them. Over the last thirty minutes, most of them had managed to bond with one or more of the animals and were now quite happy with sharing space with them.

Sophie was flanked on either side by a Bichon frise and an Australian terrier while she had a British shorthair cat on her lap. Nate was awkwardly petting a beagle standing at his side, while his other hand lay on a Persian kitten that lay contentedly in his lap.

Eliot was by the kitchen counter, trying to make breakfast for the group while being followed around by the mastiff, which had switched loyalties and the Alaskan Malamute that had been sleeping in the entryway. While Parker was trying to make herself inconspicuous in the corner seat, she had Pasquale on her shoulder, trying valiantly to match her hair color, while the Chartreux kitten she'd been talking to when Eliot came in, sat on her lap, playing with a piece of yarn.

Of the lot, Hardison seemed to be comfortable only around the smaller animals and some kittens so he'd taken his position on the couch accompanied by the hamster and the squirrels. A cute little Texas manx kitten had found its way over to his size eleven shoes and was rubbing up against his legs in an effort to get his attention.

As one, the rest of the team turned to Parker and four pairs of eyes silently asked her to explain her actions. Slowly and quite unsure of what she was gonna say to defend herself and keep the animals, the thief made her way to the center of the space.

"I... I actually don't really have a very good reason. When I went to the shelter with Hardison during the con, I saw all these puppies and kittens shut up in cages there, waiting for someone to take them home. I... I don't know. I just felt like bringing them home you know... They shouldn't have to wait like that for someone to like them and take them home... I just... I'm sorry..."

Parker's voice had progressively softened as the narrative went along and by the end of it, she was crying big, crystal tears. Not waiting for anyone to say anything, she bolted, flying out the door and heading for the roof. Seconds later, cursing under his breath for not noticing it before, Eliot growled out for the others to not follow him and headed up for the roof himself, hoping to find his crying girlfriend before she went back into her emotional shell. The others were too busy trying to regulate the animals that had caught onto the strong emotions in the room and were acting antsy, and didn't see him pick something up before he left.

After searching for a couple of minutes, Eliot found her curled up into a ball, taking up as little space as possible in one corner of the roof. Approaching her silently, he carefully sat down next to her, inching closer until she was flush up against his body. He put an arm around her thin, shaking shoulders and squeezed lightly, before pulling her further into his embrace. Parker was still crying silent tears but she'd stopped shaking now and was allowing herself to snuggle closer to Eliot.

"What happened down there darlin'?... Why did you run off like that? I thought we were gonna work this out... None of us are angry at you for bringin' those critters in, we just wanted to know why you did it sweetheart..."

Still sniffing, Parker swiped a hand at her nose a little inelegantly before she answered him

"I... I don't know. I guess it felt too much like the old orphanages and homes I've been in, just waiting... you know... my life on hold till someone liked the look of me and took me home with them... just to return me back like some defective toy some time later when they found out that I wasn't like what they'd thought I would be like..."

Eliot had guessed this would be the situation, but he couldn't help stiffening in anger at what the beautiful young woman had had to go through in her childhood. He couldn't let himself react now or he wouldn't be able to let Parker get it out of her system.

"I guess... I just didn't want the little puppies and kittens to go through that. I could talk, I could take care of myself after sometime but these little things, they... they can't even do that. I didn't think I guess... I just brought them all to Nate's, hoping that we could do something about it. But I know... there's nothing we can do right?..."

"Baby... I know you want to keep them all, but you know that we keep moving, traveling a lot on the job, so there won't be anyone around to take care of all of them. Each and every one of those animals is very special and requires a lot of care and love. I know you love each and every one of them but don't you agree that they all need good homes to be in?... Have you ever thought of the fact that by bringing them all here, you might be depriving some kid of the perfect pet?..."

"I... I hadn't thought of that..."

Eliot let Parker think this one out by herself as he leaned back against the wall, letting himself relax.

"So... We have to take them back huh?... All of them? Right now?"

"Yeah... They have to go back to the shelter... but not each and every one of them. Here..."

To Parker's surprise, Eliot brought out his hand from behind him, opening the palm to reveal the little chameleon inside.

"You can keep Pasquale... He's gonna be a gift... from me to you"

"H-How did you know?"

"About the chameleon... or the name?"

"Th... The name"

"Oh come on sweetheart... We saw that movie together and I know just how much you liked the chameleon in it... So come on now... let's get downstairs and tell everyone what's gonna happen... okay?"

"Yeah... Okay..."

Just as the pair were about to leave the roof to the staircase, the thief pulled the hitter's arm, turning him around to face her. Standing up on her tiptoes, she pressed a long, sweet kiss on his lips, molding her body to his as they both leaned back against the wall.

"Thank you Eliot... I... I love you."

"I love you too baby... I love you so much..."

Eliot went back in for another soft kiss, before pulling back and wiping the tears off her cheeks

"Now come on before they send out search and rescue for us..."

When they got back to the mastermind's loft, the couple were in for a surprise. Nate, Sophie and Hardison were quite taken with all the animals, and upon Nate's suggestion, they all agreed that they would return the animals to the shelter, but would pay to get the animals taken care of, at least till they got adopted by someone else.

Sophie and Nate ended up keeping the British shorthair, which she called Sherlock, while Hardison's constant companion was the Hamster he'd started calling Kobayashi... and wouldn't hear of changing it to anything else upon being told that it was a very weird name for a hamster.

Eliot secretly made sure his neighbors, a older couple with a lot of time on their hands and a love for dogs, adopted the Belgian Mastiff and the Alaskan Malamute and himself spent a lot of time with the animals whenever he went over for the weekends. Parker of course rarely went anywhere without Pasquale nowadays. The only places he was not allowed inside were Eliot's kitchen for his own safety and Eliot and Parker's bedroom... for reasons other than safety.

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><p><em><strong>AN : Hope you liked this one B... Review your thoughts people... **_

_**P.S. SharkGurl, you'd asked about putting in another prompt... there's no limit to the number of prompts you can give me... jus type 'em in and send them on their way to me... They will become E/P fics at one point of time or the other... Keep reading and reviewing ! :)**_

_**Lotsa luv**_

_**Macybear**_


	4. Getting over it or getting it over with?

_**A/N: Hi guys... first off, sorry for the delay. I haven't exactly been in the right frame of mind to write for the last coupla weeks... And when I did force myself to sit at the laptop and type up something, it always turned out angsty and unhappy. But somehow I just wanted to post this one, even though it's not some of my better work... Will work on getting back to my groove soon... Till then, please make do with this... :|**_

_**This fic is based on drjones' prompt.**_

**drjones said:**

**How about touching on the subject of how physically hard Parker was to Elliot last season...hit with a car/get over it, hitting him with a crow bar... : )**

_**I am pretty sure this wasn't the way you wanted it to go... if you don't like it, I could take another stab at it later... so tell me what you thought.**_

_**This one is quite angsty, unhappy and just not my style of writing, but I hope atleast some of you might like it. So review and tell me what you thought...**_

_**Edit note: This fic has been turned into a full length one... if you want to read the whole thing, please visit 'Getting over it' on the Leverage fanfic archive  
><strong>_

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><p>Eliot Spencer was a man of few words. He preferred to let his actions do the talking for him instead of using words to convey his opinions. Words, he'd found were often empty sounds, devoid of any meaning because most of the time, people who spoke them never really meant what they were saying.<p>

Words could be used to hurt but they could also be used to heal... to fix things. Something he'd almost never tried. Or rather, been successful at... his debacle with Aimee was all the proof he needed of that. But right now, the hitter really really wanted to use certain words, with a focused intent... to hurt. He wanted to hurt the crazy thief as much as she'd hurt him. He wanted to take away that feeling of safety that she said she got around them. He wanted her to feel something... for once.

They all knew that Parker was... how should I say it, different. The things that affected most people, most normal people, didn't seem to have any effect on the crazy blonde. In fact, there had been very few times she seemed affected by anything and Eliot wanted one of those times to be now.

Eliot Spencer never hit girls... not even when they hit him. Okay, Mikel was an exception but come on, she wasn't a girl... not in the frail, damsel in distress sense of the word. Well, neither was Parker, but she wasn't an amazon like the female hitter had been. Even then, Eliot wanted to make sure that she knew his sentiments on her actions.

It almost never happened that Eliot lost his temper with someone on the team and most of the times it was Hardison that found himself as the focus of the hitter's ire. But even he knew that Eliot could never just lose it and hurt any of them and any remaining vestiges of anger always gave way when the due apologies came his way. Of that the team was sure of... like rock solid sure. But right now, the idea of hurting the thief for treating him the way she was, was quite tempting to the retrieval specialist.

It hadn't even been the crowbar thing or the running him over with a car, what had gotten to Eliot the most was the fact that she had acted so nonchalant afterwards, so dismissive of his injuries and his anger towards her... as if it didn't matter, as if _**he**_ didn't matter. As if his position as the team's hitter was just that... a job. That any of them could do. Worse, when he'd asked her about the way she'd acted, she told him to 'get over it'. _**Get Over It**_.

Eliot had barely controlled himself from lunging out at the small thief and laying a right hook on the smooth, unblemished skin of her face. But he knew that he wasn't a man who used violence to solve all his problems.

Sure, he was a hitter by profession and could take down the best of them without batting an eyelid when the situation called for it, but no way was he going to let a crazy blonde squirt reduce him to being a neanderthal over this. Had it been Hardison or even Nate who had commented that way, they would've probably needed an ambulance after he was done with them.

He busted his ass everyday so that the rest of the team could be safe and all he wanted was to be given enough respect for the job he did. Eliot had forgotten how many times he'd had to take men down to keep his team safe, how many times he'd had to take a hit that was meant for one of his team members... or how many times he'd had to let himself be hurt so that he could buy them some time to get away.

He'd never complained about it or expected anything to be done for him in return. Eliot knew that as the hitter, it was his job to give as well as take hits for the team and he was okay with it. Till Parker had, with one sentence in essence, taken away all the importance his job held for the team. She'd acted as if it was a matter of almost no consequence and that _**he**_ was the one who was making a mountain out of a molehill.

The straw that had broken the camel's back was when she'd turned from her hunt for fortune cookies to look at him with an expression that he knew very well. He knew this because it was the one he'd almost always had on his face when she ended up doing something crazy... the one that said 'There's something wrong with you'.

For a second when she turned, he thought he'd seen concern in her eyes but a mere second later it had melted into her usual uncomprehending blank stare and Eliot knew that it had been just wishful thinking on his part. Why he was even wishing for her concern about his well being he didn't know. What he did know was that somewhere along the way since they'd all met due to Dubenich, these four people had made their own little spaces in Spencer's life and descended enmasse around the region of his heart.

Nate had always been a friend in Eliot's opinion. Even though it had taken the mastermind quite some time before he reconciled himself with the idea of being a thief himself and acknowledged the strong bond of friendship and camaraderie that had grown between them by then.

Sophie... she was the female version of Nate. Eliot had never thought he would be so close to a woman without having taken her to bed or being related to her. But Sophie had proved to be in a league of her own and Eliot had come to treasure the moments he'd spent with the talented grifter, even though the period of her leaving the team had caused a sizable rift in their relationship.

Hardison, whether the hitter liked to acknowledge it or not, had firmly encroached the position of the geeky younger brother that Eliot had always wanted but never had. Alec Hardison might be the single most irritating excuse for a human being on the planet but Eliot wouldn't change a thing about the man or their relationship... except maybe his unhealthy obsession with Orange soda, junk food, computer games and a certain blonde thief... maybe if he might add in something about a liking for fishing, some concept of what good music was and just the idea of what a man's personal space was, Hardison could possibly make the ideal Spencer younger brother.

And then there was Parker. The exasperating blonde thief was what kept Eliot up most days... dreaming of her seemed to be dominating his night nowadays... not that he would admit that even under torture. The dreams had started after the thing with the Faberge egg... the Zanzibar Marketplace thingamajig... That dress... The hitter'd had a hard time maintaining his concentration during that job.

A blonde in a pink dress had always been his weakness... I know, quite cliche but who cares. But this blonde in that pink dress had just summarily blown him away. He'd never thought he'd ever think about Parker that way. I mean he liked women... more than liked them, but he worked with Sophie and Parker. So while they were women and quite beautiful at that, they'd never registered on Eliot's radar. Rather, he made sure they did not, under any circumstances. Work and pleasure never mixed and Eliot knew this fact very, very well.

But that night in the museum, Parker's itty bitty pink dress and that fact that he knew she was hiding that priceless Faberge egg somewhere underneath that skin tight sheath had blown all of his notions about work ethics away. The world's best retrieval specialist brought down by a handful of pink fabric masquerading as a dress... shameful he knew, but man! what a way to go. Or rather, what a way it would've been to go had he done anything about the major revelation he'd had that night.

Eliot knew that there was no way he'd ever do anything about his... feelings. First of all, it was Parker... 'nuffsaid. Secondly, there was the team... he wouldn't do anything to damage the delicate balance that they'd managed to strike between their professional and private lives. Third and maybe most important personally, there was Hardison to think about. So yeah, there was no way he would do anything about it.

But try telling that to his brain that seemed bent on exploring every bit of his Parker revelation in his dreams. He'd somehow managed to bring both his body and his mind under control and function his way through the office and the various cases they dealt with.

But now, Parker seemed to be acting in this bizarre apathetic fashion and he'd just let it get under his skin. As it is, the iron control he'd held on his emotions was already shot due to the effort it took to act normally around her, he couldn't just let it slide when, after beaning him with a crowbar once and running him down with a car the other time, she started to act as if none of it mattered.

Now this was it. Thus far and no further. Eliot knew that he had a responsibility to the team and that he couldn't just cut and run at the first niggle of a problem but he now had no qualms against cutting himself off from the crazy blonde. He would of course still have to work with her... It wasn't gonna be that tough. He wasn't much of a conversationalist so most of the time he could get away with not opening his mouth at all. All he had to do now was make sure that the rest of his simultaneously perceptive and emotionally empty crew didn't get pulled into the drama. He'd decided his plan of action, now all that remained was to put it into practice.

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><p>The team had just gotten back from running a con on that slimy car salesman... what she privately liked to call The Boost Job, and Parker for one, was exhausted. It wasn't so much the boosting cars rather than the subterfuge and hiding that got to her. Parker could always hide, ever since she was a child, she was extremely adept at making herself as small as possible and fitting her body into places that would've been deemed too small by others. She liked hiding in small, dark places where no one would search for her, and watch other people quietly.<p>

But this kind of hiding was new to her. She'd never learned to hide her feelings and emotions before. Whatever Parker felt, Parker said. But this time, somehow, something was making her hesitate and clam up. It was almost as if she couldn't talk about it and that made her feel very uncomfortable... very un-Parkerly.

It had all started when Sophie had commented offhandedly one day while they were all at Nate's loft for lack of anything else to do. The grifter had just said something about how she and Eliot were both uncomfortable being touched by anyone but each other. Parker knew very well about the first part. She never liked being touched... neither did Eliot.

They both needed to be given adequate advance notice even by their team members before being touched, even then they both stiffened and squirmed uncomfortably during the period of contact. If not, Parker probably would stiffen and move away and Eliot might end up breaking your fingers before they landed on his person. Hardison's disturbing preference for 'hugging it out' had almost gotten him killed atleast a couple of dozen times till now. It spoke volumes about Eliot's self control that the hacker was still alive, functioning and without a single scratch on his lanky form.

But she'd never noticed that she and Eliot never seemed to have any sort of problems with touching each other, or being in each other's personal space. Small touches, nothing else... a tap on the shoulder to get the other person's attention, a guiding hand on her arm, a slight poke to his side to make him do what she wanted, a soft touch on the small of her back to guide her when she wasn't a 100% fine. With Eliot, Parker was able to take liberties that she took with no one else and to everyone's surprise, the hitter let her.

There were very few times in her life that Parker had felt truly safe. And most of the times she felt it recently, was in the company of the retrieval specialist. Sitting next to his solid presence during meetings, touching him absently and helping out in the kitchen were some ways in which the thief had unconsciously started enjoying his presence.

And she might've never noticed, never reacted if it hadn't been for Sophie's offhand comment. The grifter seemed to think of it as something quite amusing rather than the life changing revelation it was for the younger blonde. It made her reevaluate whatever she thought she knew about the relationship between her and Eliot. Even though she stopped herself from reacting too much to the comment, at least outwardly, inside she was almost screaming to herself at the conclusion she came to.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, entirely without her permission, she'd started to feel comfortable around him, she'd done the worst thing and started to have feelings for the hitter. And they weren't the normal kind of warm fuzzies that she had when she thought about her team, her family. These feelings made her feel hot and cold at the same time, made her stomach clench uncomfortably and made her feel itchy, like she was trying to climb out of her own skin or something. In short, they had her going crazy and she didn't know what it was or what to do about it.

She found herself spending all of her spare time either watching the hitter as discreetly as possible or thinking about him. It was highly distracting and not something she needed in her life right now... or ever. She'd thought she was comfortable with the nameless, faceless one night stands she'd had till now, but of late, she found herself thinking about what it would be like if she had a proper relationship... a boyfriend. And that role was always filled by the hitter in her dreams.

As uncomfortable as her feelings made her, they couldn't be ignored. But neither could they be expressed. Parker wasn't as clueless as she made herself out to be. It had been a survival tactic she'd learned when she was small. Make people think you don't know much and they usually made the mistake of underestimating you. Parker might not understand her own emotions but she understood what other people were like and what they felt.

And she knew that if Eliot came to know about her feelings for him and he didn't reciprocate them, as most probably he wouldn't, the delicate balance that the team functioned on would be destroyed. That was the last thing she wanted to do. After so many years she had found a place where she fit, a family for herself, where she could be herself around people who liked her for who she was and didn't judge her for what she did or had done previously.

This new family was the most important thing to Parker now and there was no way she was going to do anything that might upset the situation in any way. She needed this platform to fall back on and she wasn't going to destroy this safe little haven of hers at any cost, even if it meant not exploring the tantalizing possibility of normality... of being with someone in every sense of the word.

She was going to have to make sure that this miasma of feelings roiling inside her never got out. Whatever it took to save her family from any sort of trouble, she would do it. They had given her so much, now it was her turn to do something for them. If only to stop herself from upsetting the balance by expressing her emotions, Parker would make sure that nothing hurt them... Eliot kept them safe, she would keep him safe. If it meant pushing him away, making sure that she couldn't break under pressure, she would do it. It didn't matter if something in the region of her chest hurt at that thought, she had to keep her family safe and she would do anything to make sure it stayed that way.

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><p>It had been a day since they'd gotten back and the team was waiting on background checks for their next job. Parker had distanced herself as much as she could from the hitter, both physically and emotionally, going as far as to coldly tell him to 'get over it' when he questioned her about her mistakes in the previous jobs. She'd felt something inside her hurt some more when she saw the ever-present warmth in the hitter's cerulean eyes fade out to be replaced by a chill... something so cold and remote that instinctively the thief knew that she might've done irreparable damage to their relationship.<p>

That had just been the start. Eliot had distanced himself from her, choosing a seat as far from her as possible whenever a team meeting was called or when they all hung out at Nate's loft to just relax. He didn't look at her, didn't talk to her unless completely necessary and even then, his voice lacked the customary warmth that she'd never noticed till it was gone. It was almost as if she was a stranger and not one he particularly wanted to get to know.

As much as that hurt, it hurt even more when he categorically refused to so much as acknowledge her presence during their next con. Oh he was there alright, right beside her, protecting her and the rest of the team, but it was almost as if he was a ghost... only making his presence known when it was utterly necessary.

Even when he'd had to go up against fifteen security guards who'd showed up suddenly, he hadn't made a sound. Only the various noises associated with a fight had alerted the rest of the team to Eliot's preoccupation when Parker had left the building and Eliot hadn't. Normally, she would've stayed with him, maybe used her taser on a couple of the guys and taken a couple of them down by herself, helping him with it, but now, they were both intent on ignoring each other's presence and that had resulted in their getting separated and Eliot having to face all of the guards alone.

They'd all watched in morbid fascination as the hitter had turned into a veritable fighting machine, taking down all fifteen men with precise, economical moves that somehow only served to magnify the extent of his controlled anger. Parker saw a glimpse of the beast inside of the retrieval specialist before it was expertly restrained and covered up as if it had never existed.

He'd stepped out of the building and into the waiting van as if he'd just stepped in from a casual stroll but Parker's sharp eyes had caught on to the various injuries the hitter was sporting from the confrontation. No one could fight fifteen armed guards and get away unscathed. It was obvious to her that he at least had a mild to moderate concussion by the way he was trying to focus on something but finding it difficult, a couple of cracked ribs, a broken wrist and a strained knee.

Eliot made nothing about his injuries known to his team, opting to take care of them himself when he got to his apartment. After they'd all gotten to the offices and sat through a post job meeting, the team had dispersed for the night and Eliot was thankful for the early dismissal. Wobbling just a little bit because of his concussion and cradling his left wrist that was swollen underneath his wide leather bracelet, Eliot managed to make it to the parking lot and was about to get into his truck when he found the keys snatched from his hands.

The thief, who'd snatched the keys from him slid easily through the open door of the truck into the driver's seat and patiently waited for him to get in via the passenger door, which she opened, indicating that he should get in. Eliot was almost growling in frustration and deciding that communicating with the crazy blonde was the last thing he needed with a concussion, he slammed the door and started walking in the direction of his house, a good dozen miles away.

Huffing in frustration and a little bit of concern at his slow, careful gait, Parker put the car in gear and slowly trundled after him, keeping pace with the injured hitter so that he knew she wasn't gonna just leave him to walk all the way.

"Look Eliot... I am not doing this for you... or me. I am doing this for the team. You're injured, probably have a moderate concussion and you shouldn't be driving under the circumstances okay?... So stop acting like a baby and just get in the car."

Eventually, half a mile down the road, exhaustion and pain drove the hitter to get into the car and the two of them resumed their journey towards his house, in complete silence. Once at the house, Eliot quietly held the door open for Parker, clearly indicating that she had done her duty by getting him to his home and that she should leave now.

"Look... You have a concussion and shouldn't be left alone for at least another couple of hours. I am not going anywhere and you're just going to have to deal with it."

"Parker don't make me kick you out... get out of my house... now."

Those were the first words Eliot had spoken to her in three days. His low, gravelly voice sent a frisson of pleasure down her spine at the same time his sharp words and cold tone pricked her like a needle to the heart.

"Eliot let's just get you taken care of first okay?... Then we can talk about this stupid fight or whatever it is..."

The second it escaped her mouth, Parker knew she shouldn't have said that. Had it been a normal Eliot it might not have mattered as much but this Eliot was hurt and angry... angry at her.

"Stupid?... Oh so this is stupid now is it?"

The hitter was thoroughly incensed now. His blue eyes were sparking dangerously and even though he's had trouble keeping himself upright due to the concussion and broken bones, the anger seemed to straighten him up, bring things into focus. He took a couple of dangerous steps closer as he spoke, his voice oddly calm and low in contrast to his aggressive demeanor

"What next Parker?... huh? What next... Am I stupid too?... Is that why I keep bustin' my ass everyday trying to keep all of you safe?... tryin' to keep you safe?..."

He was almost in her face now and Parker was, for the first time feeling real fear. The kind that roots you to a spot, captures and paralyses you. She felt like a small animal in front of a hungry lion. She was going to be lunch and there was nothing she could do.

"Is that what you think Parker?... That I am too stupid to do anything else? Or that anyone else can do what I do?... Maybe I should stop doing it from now on... Maybe I'll get myself out when something bad happens in the next job and leave you to take care of things. Wouldn't you like that?"

There was no way she could've opened her mouth to say anything even if she'd wanted to but as it was there was nothing she could say. She'd overstepped the line by asking the hitter to 'get over it' that day, her panic at her emotions making her say the one thing she shouldn't have. She knew how much Eliot did for the team and also knew that rarely did he expect anything in return. The only thing he did expect from the rest of them was the respect that they gave each other and she'd taken it away from him that day. Now she had to suffer the consequences. So she closed her eyes and prepared herself for the storm she knew was coming.

Oddly, that seemed to spark his temper even more and she suddenly felt Eliot move away.

"You know what Parker... I am done. I am hurt, I am exhausted and I am just... tired of all this. I am tired of being treated like an automaton. So you can leave now and keep away. okay?"

She heard him walk to the door slowly, pull it open and stand next to it, waiting for her to leave. Swallowing hard, Parker tried to get the courage to say something.

"Eliot... I-"

"Leave Parker... I am tired of playing these games with you. If you want to be entertained, go play with Hardison and just leave me alone okay? I will continue working with the team... working with you. I am a professional and I am not about to let my feelings affect my job. But you have to promise me one thing... Stay out of my life. Is that clear?"

"El-"

"Go Parker... Please"

It was the 'please' that did it. She could see that he meant what he was saying and hanging her head, the thief stepped out of Eliot's house, turning once only to see the door click shut with a finality behind her. She'd played her part and now she had to live with the consequences of her actions.

She'd made a mistake in her panic and while it might not seem a big one at all, it was the one thing that could hurt and alienate the hitter. She'd succeeded in hurting the one person who'd looked beyond her crazy personality to see the real person beneath. She'd pushed away the one guy who could've given her the normality and safety she craved and she'd done it so well that he didn't even want to see her now.

Maybe one day they might be able to get over this, she might be able to explain her actions and they might even end up being closer friends or more, but today wasn't that day. It wasn't time yet to explain and maybe it wouldn't that day for quite some time.

But Parker was sure that one day, she would make sure Eliot knew of her feelings no matter what he felt or didn't feel. Until then, she just hoped that the small family that they'd created for themselves would remain intact.

She'd set out to protect herself from them and discovered that there was no need for that. Then she'd tried to protect them from her and had ended up hurting one of them in the process. She would make up for her mistakes in due time and in every way, but today, she had to live with her decisions no matter what they cost her.

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><p><em><strong>AN: So that's it. I've never posted anything that didn't have a happy ending but somehow couldn't force myself to do that with this piece of fiction. Plus I thought that both the characters were hopelessly self indulgent and wallowing in pools of self pity... or maybe that was just my self pity talking... Sorry guys. :(**_

_**Hope some of you liked it anyway... Please review and tell me what you thought. **_

_**drjones : I hope you don't mind the way I went with it. Plz review your thoughts...**_

_**luv**_

_**Macybear**_


	5. Close Encounters of the Marine kind

_**A/N: OMG guys!... Thank you so much for your amazing reviews and support. I can't explain how much it all meant to me. **_

_**So here's the next fic in the prompt-verse. This one's courtesy of Lolli-x... Thank you and hope you like it. **_

**Lolli-x said : **

**Sounds good**

**Swimming/Dancing, Parker injured (btw i love the pairing and parker i just love my favourites getting hurt) and Children**

**Do with it what you wish :)**

_**So here's what I wished to do with it... Review your thoughts. **_

_**Oh and this one goes out to Mercedes and Katie in addition to Lolli-x... Thank you guys. I'll never be able to express my gratitude for all your support and caring words. I heart you... :)**_

P.S. Oh and I forgot to mention, after so many people and drjones asking for another chapter to finish up my previous prompt-verse entry 'Getting over it or Getting it over with?', I have been convinced by some really well thought out arguments from you guys to turn it into a full length fic. I am gonna finish it and post it separately soon. The first chapter is still gonna be here, I'll just add a link to the whole thing once it is done.

Thnx a lot

Macybear

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><p>"Come on Eliot... The water is so nice and cool."<p>

The hyper, blonde thief was pulling Eliot Spencer into the surf, almost dragging the grinning hitter along in her excitement. Treading cool water and sun warmed sand along the shore, the pair had decided to take a dip in the water as the sun climbed higher in the sky.

"Come on... Race you to the pier and back... Loser gets to seduce the winner tonight..."

With that happy pronouncement, the slim blonde plunged into the salty waters, swimming away from the hitter who continued treading water slowly, enjoying the sight of his girlfriend, clad in a gold one piece swimsuit frolicking in the waves in front of him. Not finding her boyfriend of four months chasing after her, the blonde thief curiously turned to see the man in question still standing where she'd left him.

"Eliot... I said it was a race... why are you still standing there?" she was almost pouting and whining like a five year old

"It's okay darlin'... you said the loser got to seduce the winner... So I am happy to lose if it means I get to do whatever I want with you tonight..."

The easy, carefree grin on his face was one of the most beautiful ones she's ever seen from him and that made Parker impulsively swim back to him, stretch up on her toes and wrapping her wet body around his, firmly attach her mouth to his in a kiss that lasted as long as they could go without breathing.

"What do you say we ditch the race and get to the prize now itself?" she asked breathlessly once they'd pulled away to take in some much needed air.

The answering grin she got coupled with the lazy, contented warmth in Eliot's ocean blue eyes meant that she was in trouble... but that was okay cuz she planned to enjoy every minute of whatever trouble she could stir up with this man beside her.

It wasn't everyday that they got some time off and were able to actually relax like this without the prospect of a job or some other enemy hanging in the horizon.

The team of Leverage Associates was on a rare break and this weekend, they'd decided to spend like every other normal family on... yeah you guessed it, the beach.

They'd just finished a job running a con on the warden of the Florida State Prison so that they could get out some innocent people from the jail and in the process expose some crooked judges, police officers and the ring leader of them all, the jail warden.

After a week of hard work on all their parts, the clients were home, happily reunited with their families and the mark's were all either in their own prison cells or pending massive investigations.

That done, Sophie had been insistent on spending the rest of the week shopping at the various boutiques in Miami while Hardison had wanted to check out the comicon that was currently doing its rounds of the sunshine state. And so they had stayed. Nate had spent the days following Sophie about the shopping malls, carrying her bags for her while Hardison had absconded for a couple of days after entering the hotel where the convention was being held.

That left Eliot and Parker to fend for themselves and they had... in the most satisfying ways. They'd hardly left the hotel, preferring to spend their time inside and away from the hot Florida sun.

Of course, the evenings were spent with the rest of the team, eating out at various restaurants, checking out the local clubs and bars and generally winding down after their hectic schedule lately. But the nights, followed as they were by mornings and lazy afternoons, were all spent in the seclusion of the couple's hotel room.

But it was Saturday now and they were catching a flight back to Boston on Monday morning. So Sophie and by extension Nate, had decided that they would all be spending the last day of their short vacation together. So Sunday morning found the five of them at the beautiful sands of South Beach.

The group had taken over a small area with some deck chairs and recliners put out in the sand with a couple of changing cabins right beside it. It was still just about mid-morning and there wasn't much of a crowd at the beach yet. The men decided to put up the loungers, the umbrellas after they'd stripped down to their swim trunks while the ladies went to the changing cabins to get into their beachwear. Hardison and Nate had stripped down to their swim trunks while Eliot wore a pair of black sleeveless henley's over white swimming trunks.

Hardison and Eliot had been busy trying to wrestle some of the more reluctant loungers into proper position when Nate tapped them insistently on their shoulders. Turning to see what Nate found so interesting that he had to almost poke his way through their skins, the two of them just stood and started along with the mastermind.

Somehow, they'd seen the girls dressed in everything from suits to outlandish costumes during cons... but never had they seen them in swimwear. And calling Sophie's outfit a swimsuit was as good as calling a piece of ribbon a dress. The grifter was clad in a white bikini that beautifully contrasted with her perpetually tanned skin and gave her an almost ethereal look. Couple that with her artfully tousled beachy waves and understated jewellery, you had a centrefold waiting to happen.

While Nate and Hardison were busy ogling the older brunette, Eliot was stuck on his girlfriend. There was something about a woman's body in a swimsuit that did it for the male species. Not even naked did women look as sexy as they did while wearing teeny tiny swimsuits. And this was the first time Eliot had had the opportunity to see his girlfriend in a swimsuit. Compared to Sophie's bikini, this one was positively demure but still, seeing Parker's body so nicely outlined by the golden material made it that much more alluring.

The suit that Parker was wearing was a one piece suit in a shimmery gold material. It was quite normal in its appearance, cut high at the hips, and quite low at the back. But what made it so interesting were the cut outs on the sides. On each side, there was one elliptical cutout, showing a pale patch of Parker's skin through. The contrast between her peaches and cream skin and the deep gold of her swimsuit made her look like some priceless piece of art that she loved to steal. And Eliot had plans to steal her alright.

The way she was looking right now, he just might have to push up his plans to steal her away by about a day's time and whisk her back to their room right now... To hell with spending time with the team. All he wanted to do now was take Parker away to a place where they could be alone, away from everything and undisturbed for oh... I don't know... about four, five hours maybe.

As the ladies came closer, chatting happily and smiling at the men staring at them, Eliot's face couldn't help but crease in an answering smile and he firmly pushed his plans of whisking his girlfriend away for some 'alone time' to the back burner. It wasn't frequently that they got time to relax and just be. Most of the time they were running head long from one job to the other, without even a day's downtime in the middle.

It looked as if Parker needed this time with her team and Eliot wasn't gonna be the one to put a crimp on that. As much as he loved spending time with her alone, he figured that maybe today could be spent along with the rest of the team, after all, his lady seemed to want to spend some time with them and what his little thief wanted, his little thief got.

* * *

><p>Coming up to her boyfriend (hmmm...how nice it felt inside every time she described Eliot by that name... boyfriend...booyyfriend... boyfriennddd... such a nice sounding word too...) Parker wrapped her arms around his shoulders as she pressed a quick, sweet kiss onto his lips and settled comfortably on his lap in one of the loungers. The rest of the crew had settled around them, leaving one chair next to the hitter empty for when Parker wanted to have a seat of her own.<p>

To her left the hacker was sitting up in his chair, already searching for some girls he could go and flirt with on the beach and to their right, Nate was pretending to be absorbed in a book so that he wouldn't have to fetch or carry anything more for Sophie. This pretense of his fell flat the moment the grifter started to apply sunscreen lotion on herself, knowing very well that the mastermind was trying not to stare at her and making an almost theatrical production of it... add a hunky guy, some moaning and some bad music and it might've well been a porn video.

They'd barely settled in when Parker in all her ADD glory, started to complain loudly that she was getting booored. That established, Eliot dragged her away to take a walk and maybe play in the waves for sometime. That was how they ended up in the waves, racing each other to a nearby pier and back, having fun, joking and just relaxing like a normal couple would.

Soon, more people started coming in and the shoreline became too crowded with fat middle aged people and children for this to be any more fun for the two thieves. Opting to get out while they could, Eliot and Parker walked back to the loungers, looking for all intents and purposes like a young couple, newly in love and reveling in the feeling.

A lot of people noticed them as they passed, how could they not?... A man as good looking and well built as the hitter could hardly escape the notice of any woman who had red blood flowing in her veins and no man could look at Parker without taking a second glance at her angelic profile. The two of them together were making some waves of their own on the beach and not noticing at all, so wrapped up they were in each other.

The entire walk down to the loungers was accomplished in a series of murmured words, soft kisses and playful nips, the teasing building up to something that would surely make them escape company much sooner than either of them had previously planned.

When they finally did get back, they found only Nate and Sophie there, Hardison it seemed, had disappeared after some girls he claimed he'd met at the convention. They also seemed to recognize him, so Nate had figured that he couldn't get into too much trouble. Which left Nate and Sophie alone at the recliners, Nate awkwardly trying to make conversation while Sophie enjoyed Nate's discomfort.

As Eliot settled down, he pulled a pair of rimless reading glasses from his bag and a thick magazine that turned out to be a medical journal. At their looks of inquiry and astonishment, the hitter had managed to mutter out something defensively about light reading and that it was, after all, his job to keep all of them in one piece... which didn't help all that much with the gawking as for the first time, the team got to see the gruff hitter actually blush lightly.

Parker was enchanted by the phenomenon and kept exclaiming about how 'pretty' he looked until the hitter treated her to a sharp glare and made her stop under threat of _**not**_ doing what he'd promised he would during their time in the sea. Five minutes after they'd settled down again, Parker was squirming about due to boredom, making all of them restless. So it was decided that if she could go find Hardison and drag him back, they could all leave for lunch.

As the blonde thief bounced away happily humming a tune that sounded like nothing like anything anyone had ever heard, Eliot went back to his reading but kept an eye on her as he always did when any member of his team, especially Parker was away.

That was how he noticed a minute later that she'd strayed from her search for the hacker. It seemed as if something out in the ocean had caught her eye and she was standing there, back stiff with concentration, watching something unfold in the waves. For a second, she turned and swiftly scanned the beach as if searching for something and then with a short run plunged into the waves, swimming strongly towards the open sea.

Eliot was up and running in the next second, Nate and Sophie's voices just part of the dim background noise in his ears as he powered his way out to the shore where his thief had been just moments ago. Out in the sea, he saw a dark head bob up and down, a single pale arm stretch up and wave feebly before it was swallowed up by another swell. There was someone out there, being swept out to the open sea by the rip tide that was known to exist at that beach. They had only minutes to spare before there was no getting them back. That was what had spurred Parker into diving in after them.

Eliot growled low in his throat in frustration. There was no lifeguard in sight and they were getting closer and closer to losing that person out there with every second that passed. Shouting at some nearby onlooker to call beach patrol or the police, Eliot dived into the waves himself.

He hadn't swum in the ocean all that much ever since his days as a navy SEAL... but that kind of training was something you could never forget, even if you wanted to. Eliot felt his body settle into a fast paced rhythm, still managing to conserve most of his energy for the return journey, which he knew would be even harder.

Close to the halfway mark, Eliot stopped his strokes to get his bearing and take a look at where the swimmer and Parker were. Mentally heaving a big sigh of relief when he found Parker's golden head bobbing next to the dark one of the swimmer, Eliot resumed his fast paced stroking towards the pair, hoping to get there before either of them got into trouble.

But once he got close enough for him to hear her, Eliot could make out that something was wrong. Parker was shouting something to him and he had to stop to listen to her even when his body and mind were bent on reaching them and dragging them both to safety.

"El-Eliot... Don't come any further. Just stay there till I get to you okay?... I don't want you to get stung too."

Of all her words, only the last two rang alarm bells in his head

"Stung? Parker what are you talking about? Are you alright?"

He finally noticed that the person bobbing next to her seemed to be a young boy, twelve maybe thirteen years old and he seemed to be having trouble keeping his head up... not that he was exhausted from swimming or something, he seemed to be sleepy. All of a sudden, the alarm bells already ringing in his head started truly clanging. Parker was talking about stinging and the boy was getting sleepier by the second. Parker also sounded as if she was having trouble speaking.

"E-Eliot... There's a big horde of j-jellyfish right beneath us... They're m-moving... slowly. So if I t-try and get the two of us to you slowly, we should be able to get Don-Donny here back to the shore in no time"

As much as he wanted to believe the thief's optimistic plans, Eliot could tell that she was already losing a lot of energy and she would also find it very difficult if not impossible to keep awake in a minute or so. The situation was looking pretty grim and deciding to take a little bit of risk, Eliot moved forward slowly in a surface crawl, trying not to disturb the water anymore than he had to and slowly catching hold of the already half asleep Donny, pulled him and Parker out of the way.

Once he was sure that they were out of the area of jellyfish, Eliot pulled the young boy onto his back in a lifesaver's hold and gave a hand to Parker who was making a valiant attempt at staying awake. They were still a long way from the shore, there was the rip tide to contend with and he was loaded down with two sleepy passengers. Donny had gone unresponsive now and Parker was fast on her way to unconsciousness but she was trying hard with every bit of strength inside her to keep awake and help him as much as she could.

Transporting two dead weights about half a mile to the shore would be hard work, even for someone as fit as Eliot was. Taking a decision after thinking for a moment, keeping an arm around the already unconscious boy, Eliot peeled off his henleys and tore it into strips, knotting them all together to form a wide band. He then proceeded to lash Donny to his body using the fabric strip, praying fervently to every god he believed in that it held atleast till Eliot got to shallow water, or someone came to help.

Once the boy was securely tied to Eliot's back, Eliot turned Parker's body around so that she was floating with her face up beside him. He then put his left arm around her shoulders and with his right, started to slowly stroke his way forward, picking his way to the shore, trying to avoid as much of the riptide's pull as possible.

Swimming towards the shore at an angle, the hitter was able to conserve as much energy as possible while literally carrying the two unconscious people with him. Even as physically conditioned as he was, Eliot found himself tiring with the effort required to pull the three of them towards the shore when the ocean seemed bent on pulling them back in. For a couple of minutes in the middle, he thought that he might end up losing this particular battle against a force of nature, but the never say die, never quit, never give up part of the hitter came to the fore.

An interminable fifteen minutes later saw the tiring hitter dragging along the young boy and the unconscious thief along the water at a steady pace when he spied lifeguards and beach patrol making their way across the water towards him. Mere seconds later, two lifeguards on Jet Skis were bobbing next to him and had taken Donny and Parker from him. A third lifeguard was extending his hand to the retrieval specialist and soon, they were all making their way to the shore.

Once there, the two victims of jellyfish stings and their rescuer were hustled into two waiting ambulances, Eliot insisting on riding with his unconscious girlfriend. An anxious Nate, a crying Sophie and a curiously quiet Hardison were assured by the exhausted hitter that both he and Parker would be alright soon and that they were being taken to a nearby hospital where they could meet them.

Once the ambulances were on their way, Eliot took his first real look at his girlfriend in quite some time and was shocked to find her skin pale and clammy, deep shadows slashing beneath her eyes and her lips turning blue. There was also a huge gash on her leg, still bleeding quite a bit, from where the jelly-fish's stinger had embedded in her. The paramedic was hurriedly donning gloves and applying what Eliot knew to be a solution of Acetic Acid or Isopropyl Alcohol to the area so that they could remove the stingers later.

As the ambulance hurried its way to the ER, Eliot could see Parker becoming paler and paler, her face almost an ashen color and her hands turning cold. The paramedic was moving fast, almost agitatedly, trying to stabilize her labored breathing and fluctuating pulse rates while Eliot sat beside her, holding tight to the hand he could reach.

* * *

><p>Fifteen minutes later when the rest of the Leverage team entered the private room that they'd been told held Parker, they found the small thief looking pale and washed out but stable for now in the hospital bed. The exhausted hitter was sitting in a plastic chair next to her, still holding onto her hand. Eliot paid no attention to anything other than the injured blonde in the bed, his hands holding on tight as if his hold was the only thing keeping her in this world, his lips moving in a silent prayer.<p>

Eliot was making deals with the devil, God and every divine force he could think of for the first time in his life as he watched his little thief struggle to stay alive. They'd almost lost her once in the ambulance and once more in the ER before they'd been able to get some antivenin into her system and stabilize her. They were still worried about the nematocysts being in her system and had asked for a whole battery of tests to be taken.

The doctor who'd attended to her in the ER had told Eliot that it was a miracle that they were able to save both her and Donny because it seemed that they'd both been stung by a box jellyfish, one of the most venomous sea creatures found in the area. A box jellyfish sting usually meant death in just a few minutes unless immediately taken care of.

The paramedics as well as the doctors had praised Eliot when they'd found that he was the one that had brought them both ashore quickly. After checking him out and pronouncing him alright, they'd let him go to Parker's room after assuring him that she was out of danger and would recover in no time.

Nate, Sophie and Hardison trooped in quietly after talking to a doctor and silently making sure that Eliot was okay, returned to keeping a vigil over their injured thief. The evening and night were spent in quietitude, most of the conversation centering over Eliot's refusal to leave Parker even to go for some food. Nate had settled for getting Eliot a sandwich after they'd had some dinner of their own and let the hitter maintain his silent vigil over his girlfriend.

The next morning found Nate and Sophie curled up in a love seat at the corner, the tall hacker sleeping uncomfortably in a single seater near the window and Eliot dozing intermittently in his uncomfortable plastic chair next to Parker's bed. The hitter's fingers were still intertwined with Parker's and that was how he knew the instant she started waking up. The slight squeeze on his fingers, that he'd been praying and waiting for all night, happened early in the morning.

Slowly and sleepily, Parker's grey eyes opened and settled onto her boyfriend's worried countenance.

"Hey Sparky... What're you doing here so early?" she asked, her voice rough from sleep, exhaustion and not using it for the last 18 hours. There was a pause as she took in the room and the monitors hooked up to her body, the needle attached to her hand dripping fluids into her system and her brain woke up completely

"Where are we?... What happened?"

Eliot couldn't help but press a relieved kiss on her forehead before pulling back to just look at her. He knew that he needed to answer her question but there was no way his brain was computing anything other than the fact that she was alright, she was awake and that she hadn't left him... not yet.

Impulsively, he bent down and pressed another soft kiss on her parched lips before tipping a couple of icechips into her mouth to ease her throat from a cup that a nurse must've left on her morning rounds.

"Hi there babe... How're you feelin'?"

"Tired... Sore and Ow!.. What is that pain in my leg? What happened Eliot?"

By this time, the rest of the team were in various stages of waking up, Nate and Sophie not at all embarrassed at waking up next to each other and Hardison groaning about the numerous kinks in his body from the non-ergonomic chair he'd slept in.

After all of them had made sure that Parker was safe and nothing was physically wrong with her from yesterday, they all recounted the story of Parker and Eliot's rescue of the little boy for her sake. It seemed that though Parker had managed to stay awake for most of it, it had been by a sheer force of will and she didn't remember much of it later.

Eliot was almost chuckling as the expressions of fascination and horror cycled on her face, one taking the place of the other in regular succession. He was laughing silently beside as her eyes became as big as saucers when she removed the sheet to take a look at the still red and angry looking site of the sting.

"Am I glad nobody had to pee on _**my**_ leg because of this..." exclaimed the thief, happily unaware of the weird looks she got from Nate and Sophie, the slightly guilty look from Hardison because he'd been the one that had introduced Parker to TV programming and an outright laugh from Eliot, who'd watched that episode of Friends with her recently.

He pressed a quick kiss on her lips as he leaned back, wrapped an arm around her shoulder and said

"Me too darlin'... Me too"

The rest of the day was spent in comparative peace and quiet, with all of them too tired from the previous day's ordeal, except for one or two tiny, little mishaps... and one doozy of an occurrence. The mishap had been concerning a young nurse who'd come in to check Parker's wound and get her vital stats late that morning and had become really nervous with Eliot around. One brain melting smile from the now relaxed hitter had made the nurse drop the stack of files she held, turning Parker's room into a sea of papers that had taken almost an hour to sort over and given Hardison plenty of opportunity to flirt with the pretty nurse.

The other thing that had made the day worth remembering, or maybe not possible to forget was the disappearance of Parker from her hospital bed in the middle of the afternoon. The rest of the team had been dozing in various positions around the room, tired out from the hectic day previously and had woken up to find Parker's bed empty.

After turning the whole hospital upside down, they'd found Parker happily showing a now recovered Donny how to pick a lock in under thirty seconds. It seemed as if Donny had a bright future in the thieving business as the young kid picked one of Parker's favorite practice locks in about fifteen seconds or so. Parker herself was impressed and was about to teach him how to break in and out of places without being noticed, when she was found by her thoroughly frazzled team and everything was right in the world again.

Two days, and many break-out attempts from a completely bored Parker later, the doctors deemed the little thief okay for travel and by Hardison's mad computer skills, they'd gotten tickets back to Boston. For once, Parker behaved throughout the flight, choosing to spend the four hours snuggling into her boyfriend and enjoying his solid warmth by her side.

After all, a vacation was good anytime, but having a home to come back to and a workplace where everyone was a friend and family was even better.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: So there it is. Four down, many more to go... :) Hopefully all of you liked this one too. Please press that little review button and tell me your thoughts... I appreciate all your support.**_

_**Lolli-x : I hope you liked this one that was written on your prompt... Plz review your thoughts. **_

_**Lotsa luv and fortune cookies**_

_**Macybear**_


	6. How to find your own happily ever after

_**A/N: Hi there!... Here's another one for you awesome people... :) **_

_**This one's based on Mercedes' prompt... and I loved having some fun with it. Hope you like it Mercedes... don't forget to review your comments. :)**_

**saides said:**

**Parker plays with Eliots hair as she asks him if he could ever love her!**

**Thanks for writing this. I love E and P together.**

**Mercedes**

**p.s. whatever portion of the recipe for wild mushroom** **risotto with truffles I have mentioned in the fic is from memory... I luv watching cooking shows on TV and this is from one such show... So for all the chefs and hard core cooking enthusiasts out there that are scoffing at the mistakes in the recipe now, please excuse me  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Eliot Spencer, hitter extraordinaire and arguably the world's best retrieval expert was feeling like a bug under a microscope. The hitter had been feeling the concentrated gaze from the tiny thief and her dove grey eyes all morning and he was about to turn around and yell at her any minute now.<p>

Parker had been staring at him through out the morning's before-the-job, know-the-mark meeting and it had been highly distracting how she hadn't let her eyes leave the hitter's form through the two hour period but still managed to participate in the discussions. She'd managed to hold her own, even giving a couple of workable suggestions, all the while gazing at the discomfited hitter.

Once the meeting was over and Nate told them all to take the day off, Eliot heaved a huge sigh of relief as he stepped out of Nathan Ford's loft that had been doubling up as their offices for quite some time now. They'd shifted back to Boston from Portland, but the tradition of meeting up at Nate's place had continued and the team had decided, Nate less happily so, that they would continue to use Nate's house as the office for Leverage Associates for some time now.

Stepping out of Nate's building, Eliot was conscious of finally being free from the single minded observation of a crazy little thief. She was a bundle of crazy, that Parker, but she could be cute when she wanted to be.

Wait. What?... Did he just think that Parker was cute?

Apparently so. Apparently, his brain had decided to take a walk... and not return. What the hell was he doing thinking about twenty pounds of crazy Parker like that? Eliot knew that Parker was a beautiful woman... if you didn't know about the crazy five year old underneath the angelic exterior that is. And boy did he know that crazy five year old... and he knew her well.

And he also knew that this was not something he could afford to continue thinking about. He worked with Parker and Eliot knew that mixing his professional and personal lives only meant disaster somewhere along the horizon. So he firmly pushed aside those tantalizing thoughts of the tiny blonde thief, telling himself that it would never work out and that even if he did think it would, Parker would never think of him that way. That he knew.

Most of the jobs required the thief and hitter to team up and go on a retrieval or surveillance mission and through the years, the two of them had worked up and system and worked each other out in the meanwhile. Eliot knew Parker much better than any one else on the team and he was sure that Parker also knew much more about him than anyone else. And he was quite thankful for the thief's sense of discretion when it came to keeping secrets.

They'd been through a lot together and in their line of work, people tended to become extremely observant. A misstep, a small reaction or a slight hesitation could reveal a lot about that person to either their partner or to their enemy. Hiding one's emotions became second nature and consequently, life became harder to predict.

Parker was although, somehow, one of the most honest and straightforward people he'd even known. She could never hide her emotions, atleast not in front of her team members and always said what she meant. Sometimes Eliot had thought that Parker had no filter between her brain and her tongue, making her say things in places where she really shouldn't.

But what Parker was now, was a major improvement to what she had been in the beginning... or should we say, under Sophie and Nate's tutelage, Parker had learned about normal human emotions and what it meant to blend in with normal people in day to day social events. She was acting much more normally nowadays, constantly learning more and more from each of her social interactions.

And that was why it unnerved Eliot so much that Parker had been staring at him for such a long time today. As he got into his truck, the hitter thought back to the things he'd done the previous day, running over the list to see if he'd maybe inadvertently done something to tick the little blonde off, but couldn't pin point anything. Heaving another sigh, the hitter put his truck in gear and roared off towards the calm and quiet of his suburban farmhouse, not knowing that a certain blonde thief was pulling a spiderman and chasing him on her ziplines.

When Eliot got out of his truck some half an hour later, he had a weird feeling that somehow, today was gonna be a day that he would remember. A shiver running down his spine at that thought and another of Parker's continued staring, the retrieval specialist made his way up the steps, only to be met by a slim, black-clad form already waiting for him at his doorway.

"What took you so long? I've been waiting for you for like five minutes or so"

"Dammit Parker!... What are you doing here? I just left you back at the office half an hour ago."

"Of course silly. I rappelled my way through the city to get here and what do I see?... Your slowpoke truck is not even close. You really need to get a new truck you know... I think I saw some shiny new ones at that dealership near the highway. Wanna go steal one?"

"Wh- Parker! I am not coming with you to steal a car!"

"Okay... Then I will go steal it for you. You can thank me later..." she replied with a slightly cheeky grin.

"Dammit Parker! I don't want to steal a car... I don't want you to steal a car. I don't want you to steal anything. Period."

"Spoilsport..."

And she poked her tongue out at the exasperated hitter like the five year old he knew she was inside.

"Oh yeah real mature Parker..."

That only caused her to put her cute little nose up in the air and stalk back to his door, her converse clad toe tapping impatiently, waiting for him to open the door. Eliot sighed again, he seemed to be doing that a lot in the thief's presence, and proceeded to open his front door, knowing that if Parker was already here, there was no point in trying to make her go home now. She would leave only when she was good and ready to.

Over the past couple of months, Parker had been spending a lot of time at Eliot's house. She'd drop in unexpectedly, most of the time coming in through the windows, whenever she wanted something or was bored and end up spending most of the day at his farmhouse.

The time she spent here had become so extensive that half of Parker's closet was installed in Eliot's spare bedroom now, the sheets on that bed changed from, in her own words, a 'blah' brown that she didn't like to a 'pretty' blue and yellow flowered one that she herself had chosen (more appropriately, stolen from the Bed, Bath and Beyond near Eliot's house) and most importantly, Bunny had made several visits to the farmhouse, even staying overnight a couple of times.

The effect of Parker was felt all over Eliot's formerly orderly house, with her shoes strewn across the floor near the couches where she liked to kick them off, some of her clothes in his laundry basket(he'd finally taught her to separate the whites from the colors... though that still didn't mean she understood the point of it), her sketching pads and pencils dominating the surface of the coffee table and some of her sketches tacked up on his industrial sized refrigerator doors with some sparkly pink and blue fridge magnets that were totally out of place in his rustically furnished home.

If Eliot noticed how Parker was slowly taking over his home, he didn't seem to be complaining about it. He'd grumbled from time to time but never so much that the sensitive Parker felt any need to leave her partner's house. What was surprising was that the level of comfort the two of them shared, was way more than what they shared with the other members of their team. Nate, Sophie and Hardison knew that Parker often dropped in on Eliot, but even they didn't know just how much time she ended up spending at his place nowadays.

Now as the twosome entered Eliot's home, Parker immediately kicked off her shoes next to the couch and settled herself in the middle of the plushy cushions, clutching the remote she liked to call 'The Clicker' and started channel surfing, looking for some more brain frying science fiction crap that Hardison had gotten her addicted to.

Though Hardison didn't know it, Parker watched the series solely for it's comedic value as she thought that most of the premises used in the serial were funny and the actors with their weird hair and costumes extremely entertaining. Half the time she kept up a running commentary, telling Eliot how stupid she thought it all was. Eliot shook his head slightly at the sight of the thief making herself so comfortable in his home, a slight smile making it across his face.

"I am gonna make some lunch... What do you want?"

He'd stopped asking if she was going to stay for lunch or dinner anymore. He'd always thought that she ate like a crazy person... I mean who survived on fortune cookies and cream soda? Ever since he'd found out one day that Parker's mini fridge contained nothing but the two aforementioned items, he'd made it his personal goal in life ot make sure that she was eating properly... proper food at proper times.

"Oh can you make that awesome thing you made the other day?... With the funny little rice, mushrooms and the weird smelling thing that looked like a dirt clod?"

Eliot had to laugh at the thief's description of the food he'd made... chuckling at her he clarified

"You mean that risotto I made with wild mushrooms and truffles?"

"Yeah... That's the one. I have no idea how you make something so yummy from a weird smelling piece of dirt, but that's what I wanted... Can you make it?"

Nodding at her, Eliot proceeded into his room to change

"I can, if you promise to come and help. And it's not dirt Parker... It's Truffles"

"Oh Can I?... Awesome!" she said, ignoring the second portion of the sentence because she had no interest in learning the names of weirdly smelling dirt clods.

Parker loved to help Eliot out in the kitchen and he too liked having her around. But they had both found out the hard way that Parker couldn't be left alone in the kitchen. On two separate occasions, she'd come close to burning down Eliot's entire kitchen.

Once was when she'd tried making some cookies while Eliot had been out grocery shopping and he'd come home to a bunch of firefighters trooping out of his house, his kitchen filled with acrid brown smoke and a soaked and soot streaked Parker cheerfully telling her baking story complete with reenactments and sound effects, to a morbidly fascinated fire chief.

Another time had been when she'd just been heating up some soup he'd made. Eliot still couldn't understand how she'd managed to set a cup of french onion soup on flames, but she'd managed to do it and do it on a grand scale, taking down his cooking range along with the herb rack above it.

But that never stopped Parker from stepping foot into the kitchen, and nowadays Eliot just made sure that he was there alongside to prevent any further mishaps.

As Eliot stepped into the kitchen after changing into comfortable t-shirt and sweats, he found the blonde already sitting on the counter, her apron tied on her waist, a cleaver in her hand and a mile wide smile on her face. The effect might've been scary had it not been so utterly cute. Parker's excitement and good humor was infectious and Eliot found himself smiling back at her as he eased the cleaver from her hands, replacing it with a smaller, less dangerous knife.

"Okay Parker... You can slice the mushrooms while I put the stock on and get the rice done. There's some wild mushrooms I picked out recently in the basket back there, just slice them nicely, not too thin though right?"

Eliot pulled out another cutting board and efficiently diced up a white onion and proceeded to saute it in a mixture of butter and olive oil before tipping in a cup of arborio rice that he'd kept ready.

"What're you doing?"

"Well... I am just sauteing the onions and the rice together... The rice needs to fry a li'l bit before we start pouring in the stock, otherwise it'll just get gluey..."

"Gluey?... Is that even a word?"

(Sigh!)"Yes Parker... it is a word..."

"Gluey... Glooeey... Glueeyyy...Gl-"

"Okay that's enough... Stop Parker..."

(Another Sigh!... This woman was going to make him age faster than you could say snap...)

The hitter worked quickly and silently in the kitchen, stirring the contents of upto three pots and pans at once, getting two plates ready for them while he sent Parker on a mission to clear the coffee table and set the cutlery and glasses out.

A healthy dollop of the steaming risotto, some shavings of aged Parmesan, a wee bit of truffle on top with a finish of a couple of drops of truffle oil and voila!... ze mazterpiece... she iz done.

Eliot brought the plates to the living room to see the tiny blonde waiting with the cutlery and a couple of glasses of white wine to go along with the main. The two of them tucked into their lunch, Parker making small sounds of happiness and contentment every once in a while as Eliot ate his in complete silence.

"Oh... Here's my favorite part..."

Eliot looked up from his plate to see that Beauty and the Beast was running in mute mode on his big screen, up to the part where the kitchen utensils and the mops, dusters and other household items and whatnot were singing and dancing. Stifling another smile that was threatening to erupt onto his face at the way Parker seemed so fascinated by the cartoon film, Eliot picked up the dishes and carried them back to the kitchen and proceeded to clean up.

Fifteen minutes later, he came back to the living room to see Beauty dancing around the library with the beast, the teapot lady singing in the background. Parker was clearly engrossed and he didn't want to really disturb her. He figured he'd just go get his laundry sorted out or something when he felt Parker's slim fingers wrap around his wrist and she pulled on him insistently.

"What?... What is it? Something you want darlin'?"

Shaking her head no without taking her eyes off the screen, she continued pulling on his hand, now rather impatiently.

"What is it Parker?... Quit pulling on my hand before you just pull it out altogether..."

"Shhh... Come and sit here."

"Wh- I am not watching a kiddie movie with you Parker... you have fun with this, I have things to do..."

"Come on Eliot... Just this once. There's just a little bit more left and once the movie is done you can go do whatever you want... Please?"

Eliot had no idea why she wanted to watch the movie with him, but there was no way he could refuse the puppy eyes and the pouting face. Coupled with the 'please', which in Parker's case was an extremely rare occurrence, Eliot pretty much crumbled.

(Sigh!)"Okay... but just this once. Don't you make a habit out of this..."

But he already knew that this was going to become one... everything with Parker started like this. He wasn't a betting man but he would be willing to bet howmuchever on the fact that this... this watching kiddie movies with Parker was going to very soon become a normal and regular part of his life and there was nothing he could do about it. But that wasn't the scary part. The scary part was that lately, he hadn't wanted to do anything about it.

Settling down in the cushy couch next to her, Eliot tried to focus on the movie and was just succeeding when he felt the thief next to him squirm around on her seat, sidle to his side and scoot under his arm around the back of the couch to fit herself to his body. The warmth of her body seeping into his was as incredibly distracting as the way she was snuggling her head into the crook of his neck. Eliot, without meaning to adjusted his body to fit with hers, making sure that she was more comfortable this way.

Considering the fact that Parker was not a touchy, feely kind of person and neither was he, they were awfully comfortable cuddling with each other on his couch in the middle of the afternoon. But Eliot refused to wonder about the implications of this as he struggled not to react to the closeness of the slim but womanly body to his.

Parker, for her part was feeling incredibly warm, cozy and safe cuddled with the hitter as she was. The feeling of not wanting to leave... ever, was pervading her limbs, making them feel heavy. Trying to get the slight numbness out of her hands, she stretched her arms out behind her back when one of her hands encountered Eliot's head... more importantly, Eliot's hair.

Parker was shocked to find out that it really was as soft as it looked. She watched in fascination as her fingers delved into his silky hair of their own volition and lightly finger combed it out. Belatedly remembering what she was doing and more importantly who she was doing it to, Parker stiffened and almost stopped cold when Eliot gave a small groan and lightly tipped his head towards her wandering fingers.

The last thing Eliot expected Parker to do at that moment was to touch his hair. He had expressly told all of his team mates and specifically the two younger ones that he hated it when someone touched his hair. Even talking about it earned them a force ten glare and he would've thought that Parker wouldn't actually have the guts to touch it.

But then he'd forgotten that they were talking about devil-may-care Parker here. She might just be doing for the sake of riling him up but something told him that might not exactly be the case. Anyhow, her fingers felt too good combing his silky hair out for him to start complaining any time soon. Without even realizing that he was doing it, the hitter was slowly leaning his head so as to give her easier access. He couldn't stop the tiny groan that left his mouth if his life depended on it.

Parker's strong but gentle fingers felt so damn good... they were more confident now, roaming much more of his scalp, her touch slightly firmer, almost massaging his head now. Her fingers simultaneously felt the texture of his hair, massaged his scalp firmly and managed to relax him further, if that was at all possible.

"Your hair is so soft... Like a girl's. I thought your hair looked like Sophie's but its much prettier and softer... I like it..."

By now, Eliot could speak enough Parker-ese to understand that she hadn't meant to insult him when she called his hair 'pretty' and 'like a girl's'. Not having relaxed under somebody's touch like this for a long time, the hitter closed his eyes, enjoying the thief's firm touch on his scalp and decided to let the comment pass.

"Um Hmmm..."

He wasn't about to open his eyes and pay attention to anything now. Nothing-

"Um... Eliot... Have you fallen asleep?"

He reluctantly opened his eyes to find Parker scant inches away from his face. Instantly, his whole body was alert. Not 'You're in my personal space and I am gonna break you for it' alert. This was different. This was closer to the 'I think I want to pull you closer and kiss you senseless' kind of alert.

Parker wasn't as stupid or as clueless as she made herself out to be. The clueless facade had been a trick she'd learned from Archie when she was young and it had helped her throughout her life. She could certainly see and understand the emotion that was rampant in Eliot's eyes now. Only, she'd never thought she would see that kind of emotion in his eyes for her anytime in this life.

She'd literally given up on Eliot after trying to wrestle with the feelings that she'd developed for the hitter over the years they'd worked together, thinking that he would never feel the same way about someone who was so broken... someone who, in his own words, 'had something wrong with her'.

Eliot deserved better, he deserved someone who could make him happy and forget all the bad things that had ever happened in his life. And she knew that she couldn't be that person. Both of them were too broken in their own ways to fit as a whole and make it in the long run. Or so she thought.

Both of them stiffened as they sprang apart awkwardly. Parker scooted down a foot or so away from Eliot and tried to make herself comfortable in the soft, springy cushions, but curiously missing the solid warmth of the hitter's body next to hers. As one, they both turned their attention to the movie playing on the big screen in front of them and tried to act as if nothing was wrong... as if both of them just hadn't had their very emotional foundations shaken.

The climax of the movie had just taken place, the baddie Gaston had just fallen over the castle ramparts and the beast was lying crumpled upon the balcony, dying while Beauty cried crystal tears over him. Eliot and Parker silently continued to watch the movie, watching the beast almost die, Beauty telling him that she loved him just as the last petal fell from the enchanted rose and him turning back into the prince in a shower of golden dust... till the ending credits started rolling.

As Eliot got up to switch off the player and the TV, he noticed that Parker was a little too quiet. She had a pensive expression on her face, as if she was thinking about something deeply and not liking the answer she came up with.

"Hey... Everythin' alright babe?" Eliot asked softly

Looking up into his blue eyes, Parker hesitated a moment, deliberating as to whether she could confide her real thoughts to him or just give him the brush off. Something in his eyes seemed to decide it for her as she found herself telling him the thought that had been troubling her

"I am never gonna have that am I?"

"Have what?"

"That... Whatever Beauty and the prince had... Whatever it is that every hero and heroine have in every movie that was ever made... The happily ever after... I am never going to have it."

"That's not true... You don't know yet Parker. Your prince charming could be right around the corner just waiting for you to drop into his arms... and his life"

As the hitter grinned at her, he couldn't stop his heart from clenching at the thought of Parker finding happiness with someone else... someone that wasn't him. Oh Lord was he in deep.

"Have you ever been in love Eliot?"

The sudden change in topic threw the hitter but he was able to right himself and answer the blonde thief. Something in her voice told him that this conversation was very important and that he'd better not treat anything from his or her side lightly.

"Hmmm... Honestly? I don't know. I mean, I thought that I was in love with Aimee when I was younger. I thought that she was you know... it. But then I left, we both grew up and I guess... changed. She's a different person now and so am I. And I guess I figured somewhere down the road that what I had felt for her wasn't actually love... Seeing her again was like a wake up call. I knew that I had made the right decision to walk away years ago"

The answer seemed to be somewhat unsatisfactory to the thief but Eliot couldn't do anything about that. He'd been utterly truthful... probably more so than ever before on the subject.

"So... Do you think you could fall in love ever again?"

Eliot didn't know where the heck she was trying to go with this conversation. This was just one curveball after another and he tried to field it as well as possible while being as truthful as possible.

"I don't know Parker... I guess I'll have to find the right kind of girl first..."

"And what exactly is your kind of girl?"

Something in him told him to take the risk... to take that final chance and step out into thin air. It remained to be seen if Parker caught him or he face planted in the concrete

"Well... She would have to be in the same line of work... It's kinda hard to explain this to people outside our business and most of them don't tend to understand you know?"

At her understanding nod he continued

"She would have to understand me and my job... not try to change me or stop me from doing my job because she's worried about my safety or something. She would also have to be slightly crazy to put up with me..."

He was on a veritable roll now

"She shouldn't worry about things like dressing up or make up... She should be confident about her own skills but still be able to ask for help when necessary. I would like it if she helped out in the kitchen... it's nice cooking with someone. It would be nice if she liked training with me sometimes..."

Eliot paused here uncertainly, fearing that he'd revealed too much too soon

"Well... Don't stop now... Is that it?"

Oh well... Maybe he hadn't been clear enough

"No... Well... She would be just the right height... slightly shorter than me, she should definitely be a blonde... I like blondes... She could be a thief... That way we could work together. And she should like watching cartoon movies with me and making me do all the things she wanted to by just pulling out the puppy dog eyes..."

Something shifted in her eyes and they widened in comprehension. Eliot hoped that he'd not taken it too far... He couldn't deal with losing her friendship and the team over this, however tempting it had been, no matter how right it felt. Silently praying that she didn't kick him out of his own house for what he'd revealed to her, Eliot waited... and waited... and waited for her reaction.

Parker was blown away by what Eliot had just said. At first it had been painful listening to the hitter describe his perfect girl in such fond detail. She had liberally cursed the imaginary figure that she imagined to be Eliot's perfect girl until she'd landed upon when he said that she could be a blonde.

In Parker's imagination, Eliot's perfect girl had always been a brunette... like Aimee, or someone sophisticated and knowledgeable like Sophie. But the mention of her being blonde threw all her assumptions right out the window. And then he'd continued and she heard him describe... her. Oh Lord! what was this man trying to say?... Could it be?

She glanced up to see the usually confident and assured hitter look at her apprehensively and her slowly solidifying hope became rock solid. Now all that remained was to tell him that she felt the same way. But that couldn't be done in any old way. She was Parker and Parker didn't do things the normal way. Parker always believed that actions spoke louder than words and this time too, actions did speak louder... but in a quiet, irascible sort of way.

Eliot had expected a lot of things from her in the full minute she sat blinking at him but this, this wasn't one of those things. He certainly hadn't expected the tiny thief to just launch herself at him, pushing both of them back into the couch cushions and kiss him like her life depended on it. Of course that didn't stop him from kissing her back with every bit of passion he'd held in check before.

But Eliot still wasn't sure why exactly she was kissing him... Okay I mean, you just didn't plant one on somebody if you felt nothing for them, but it also didn't mean that she was pledging the forever kinda thing here. Pulling away slightly, Eliot looked up into her smiling face, her happiness making her almost glow... and couldn't resist going back for another taste of her.

The taste of the crisp cool white wine with just a hint of truffle and something entirely Parker was absolutely addictive. The hint of strawberry from her chapstick or lip gloss or whatever it was, just completed the combination of tastes and flavors that were etched under Parker's name in his mind.

Some time later, their make out session over, the two of them were just lying back on the couch, simply enjoying the feeling, the freedom of being with each other. Parker was almost fully lying on Eliot, his arms wrapped around her slim form keeping her close while her head was cradled against his chest.

"Does this mean?..."

"Does this mean what darlin'?"

"Well... does this mean that you're my... boyfriend?" she asked enunciating the word hesitantly, as if trying it out for the first time, which knowing Parker, maybe she was.

Eliot fought the urge to chuckle at her nervousness and settled for tightening his arms around her slightly before answering

"This can be whatever you want it to be darlin'... There's no pressure. You and I are gonna take this one day and a time and work it out from there okay?"

Parker gifted him with a truly blinding smile, stretching up to press a sweet kiss on his cheek before she snuggled back against him. Face buried into his shirt, she muttered something that he didn't quite catch

"Sorry Parker... I didn't quite get that... What did you just say?"

"I think I might just love you"

He froze

"What?"

She looked back down, blushing and trying to wriggle away frm him now, clearly uncomfortable with what she'd mistakenly revealed. But Eliot wouldn't have any of it. He clutched her securely to his chest and tipping her face up to his, asked her again

"What did you just say darlin'?"

With no other choice and unable to tear her gaze away from the intense warmth in his blue, blue eyes, Parker repeated her previous statement, with much less assurance this time

"I said 'I think I might love you'... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything of that sort. I've never been in love before and I don't know what it feels like... but with you... I don't know... You just make me feel so safe... so happy and safe all the time... So yeah... I think I might be in love with you"

She finally got the courage to look into his eyes again as she said it and was astonished to find his eyes filling up with tears. Eliot pulled his little thief closer and attached his mouth to hers in a kiss that touched her soul and made a home there... that wrapped around her broken and haphazardly refitted heart like a warm blanket and made it whole again.

"I know I love you darlin'... I know I've loved you for quite some time now and-"

This time, it was Parker who interrupted Eliot's words with another long, almost bruising kiss. The soft romance that had lingered in the air till now had changed... morphed into something more elemental... something more basic. The change was subtle, but there nonetheless and the thief and the hitter reacted to it in their own ways. Pulling back from the kiss, Eliot rasped

"What do you say we move this somewhere more comfortable?"

"Way ahead of you Sparky... you just try and keep up"

She smiled cheekily and flipped her body up and to the side, landing neatly next to the couch and taking off towards his bedroom the next instant. Grinning uncontrollably and shaking his head at her spontaneous display of childishness and innocence, Eliot ran after her, intent on chasing his little thief down.

The happy screams and shrieks of laughter that were heard around the house quietened down a few minutes later to be replaced by soft whispers and quiet sounds of pleasure that lasted till the sun went down, to be replaced by a blanket of stars.

"I love you" whispered the hitter, as if saying it out loud might disturb the peaceful air and break the wonderful spell that was hanging over them

"I love you too Eliot" came the sleepy reply

The hitter sighed quietly, tightening his arm around Parker's body as she snuggled up against him, her head pillowed on his chest. He looked down at her visage as she slipped into an exhausted slumber. The soft, creamy skin, her large dove grey eyes, framed by thick, long lashes, the cute little button nose and the generous pink mouth that always tasted of strawberries. She looked like an angel as she slept on his shoulder, her face relaxed, with a soft smile gracing it.

Eliot swallowed hard as he silently vowed to keep her this way. He would make sure that she was happy... She'd been through so much in her life and she deserved to be happy now. Parker was one of the most honest and straightforward people he knew... She was also the most innocent and intrinsically happy one, and Eliot made a promise to himself and her that he would do whatever it took to make sure she was happy... that she was safe.

"I'm gonna make you happy." he murmured, not even realizing that he was vocalizing his thoughts

"You already do..."

Eliot turned his head a bit to glance at her and discovered that she was already half asleep.

"Don't leave... Stay with me" she murmured and Eliot didn't know whether she was awake or mumbling in her sleep, but it didn't matter. He had no plans of going anywhere anytime soon.

"Always baby..."

If he had any say in it, he was gonna make sure that she was by his side for the rest of their lives.

"Always."

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><p><em><strong>AN: Okay... so that was it. Please please please review your thoughts and comments... **_

_**Hope you liked it Mercedes... feedback thoroughly appreciated. :)**_

_**Note to B: reg your last review... i have no idea how to PM you... so you'll have to PM me and tell me your idea... cuz i'm very interested.**_

_**lotsa luv**_

_**Macybear**_


	7. Tangled up in you

_**A/N: Hi guys... Here's my next chapter for the prompt-verse. Hope y'all like it. Please review your comments and thoughts... and make sure you give me more stuff to write, i love getting prompts from you. :)**_

_**I owe an apology to sararandom... sorry sararandom but when i was getting all the prompts from you guys down on files, i must've numbered them wrong. I know that your prompt was supposed to be up now, but i've made a mistake and written the fic for the next one... sorry.. but yours is already in the works and will be up next. Promise.**_

_**This fic also goes out to Mercedes... you give awesome prompts saides... heart you for that alone... ;)**_

**saides said:**

**How about Eliot washes parkers hair?**

**Thanks,**

**Mercedes**

* * *

><p>It had been a long and exhausting day at Leverage Associates. More so for some members of the team... Eliot figured that he'd been fortunate to escape the bunch of guards with just a couple of cracked ribs, a heavily bruised knee and a dislocated shoulder.<p>

Hardison had as usual been in the Van, which they refused to call Lucille now, owing to the unforeseen and gruesome deaths of the two previous Lucilles... so it was just called the Van. Hardison had voted for Thelma, god knows why but he'd been summarily shot down thank you god!...

It had been smooth sailing on this job till the very end... and then all hell had broken loose. The mark's security guards had wised up to the plan at the last stage and the team'd had to improvise... and bail. Very fast...

Eliot had been involved in getting Nate and Sophie out, trusting Parker to get away as quickly as possible using her rappelling gear. Turned out that she'd lost her bag of gear when she'd thrown it at a guard to get rid of him (that bag was freakin' heavy... no one knew how the tiny blonde managed to lug it around all the time) but had been ambushed by several more before she could retrieve it, and had only the rope she'd installed in the elevator shaft for her to get into the building through the roof access.

Problem was that even though she had her harness on, this one didn't have an auto braking system. She had used a manual harness for this job since they hadn't known which floor they would have to hit from the building schematics and she couldn't calculate the distance beforehand. She'd also been unable to wear her gloves this time since the stupid mark had an Israeli made non-electronic safe installed in his offices, which she'd had to take her time and crack by touch, the old school way.

Then she had have to use just her hands to rappel down about twenty five floors with a bunch of guards on her back. Great... fun times... (sigh!)

She'd managed admirably but by the time they all rendezvoused in the Van, her hands were almost bleeding, the skin of her palms cut in various places and rubbed raw in others, from clutching at the thin carbon nanofibre rope that she liked to use. It was extremely strong and hardy, but quite sharp and hard on her hands at the same time.

She also had a slight concussion from when a guard managed to punch her in the face, one heck of a shiner in the initial stages of development on her right eye from the same punch, a heavily bruised shoulder and possibly a broken ankle... if not broken, horribly twisted at least.

Also, her cap had fallen off somewhere in the middle of her descent, leaving her blonde waves open and hanging upside down for the rest of her climb down. Parker might not really understand a lot about make up or other things that women usually did to look nice, but she loved her hair.

From her early childhood itself, it had been the one concession she made toward herself, the one lenience in her life. The golden blonde waves were her attempt at being herself, at maintaining her own identity and she refused to let them go. Now, she didn't even want to know how bad the situation was with her hair. She would think about it later... much later

When they finally got to Nate's after quite a bit of evasive driving from Sophie, today's designated driver, which did nothing to make the concussed Parker or the bruised Eliot feel any better, Parker could almost have kissed the ground had she been confident of being able to get up after bending down to do it. As usual, the medical supplies were got out from the terribly well stocked closet that Eliot insisted on maintaining, and both the injured parties patched up considerably.

The team then dispersed, each one heaving a sigh of relief as getting another job done and finally being able to have a bit of rest. Eliot however, caught up with the thief and pulled her unceremoniously to his truck.

"Eliot!... Just what do you think you're doing?"

She had meant it to sound all angry and demanding, but it had come out sounding more like a whiny six year-old.

"One word Parker... concussion. I don't want you alone in that freaky warehouse of yours until I am sure you can take care of yourself without accidentally killing you."

Completely ignoring her stormy and insulted expression, he continued

"So you're coming with me to my house. You can spend the night in my guest room... that way I'll be able to keep an eye on you and make sure you get the proper medication as well as the required rest."

With really bad grace, the blonde flopped into the passenger seat, sighing and muttering something under her breath about 'stubborn, over muscled lamebrains' as they made their way to Eliot's refurbished farmhouse at the outskirts of the city.

To the rest of the team, his house was still a figment of their imagination, only existing in the 'undisclosed location' that he'd refused to reveal. But nothing could stay a secret for long if Parker put her mind to it. She'd got it in her head to find out where he lived and take a peek into his house and even after all his attempts to shake her off his back, she'd successfully tailed him to his home. And promptly been almost disgustingly astonished at the structure.

Eliot had tried to act insulted but he couldn't maintain the act in the face of her obvious wonder and excitement at his farmhouse. She'd kept insisting that she'd never expected him of all people to own something like this... a real house.

Her delight at the high ceilings, the wide windows, the completely refurbished kitchen at the back complete with an industrial sized cooking range and refrigerator, and finally, Eliot's pride and joy... his garden, which he carefully tended and got most of his fruits and veggies out of, was so obvious that the hitter found himself enjoying the act of showing his home off to the thief.

Very soon after that, the blonde thief had installed a series of ziplines that connected, at least for her, their offices, her warehouse and Eliot's farmhouse. If the hitter knew of this, he certainly made no comment. Nor did he act surprised or angry when the thief started dropping in on him at odd times... frequently.

She had cut it quite close the time she'd dropped in through his window unexpectedly, only to find him quite busy in bed with the flavor dujour and calmly commented that he must be quite good in bed if he had so many girlfriends before she'd sauntered out to the kitchen to get herself some of his ever present white chocolate macadamia nut cookies that she just loved. That had been the end of Cecelia or whatever else the redhead called herself.

Eliot had just about restrained himself from kicking Parker out that day, but that didn't mean that he hadn't made his sentiments known, in a loud and particularly voluble way. Pity, it hadn't seemed to affect Parker all that much but she had made one comment before leaving that evening, that had stayed with him for quite some time, rendering him speechless.

She'd said that she thought blondes were more his type.

Of course Eliot had thought about Parker before that day. He was, after all a normal guy... he'd have to be dead not to realize that the two women he worked with were beautiful in their own ways.

Sophie Devereaux had the whole European charm, along with her stunning looks going for her while Parker's was a more subtle, grow on you kind of beauty. Not that she wasn't a looker, but the more you got to know her, the more beautiful she seemed... at least to Eliot she did.

But that day, that comment had woken up feelings that he was sure he'd buried safely under miles and miles of common sense. The common sense that told him that it would be stupid to even be tempted to take this any further.

To look into this or to explore the novelty of having a relationship with one of his co-workers was obviously equivalent to sitting on a time bomb and being unconcerned about the probable outcome. It was always the same. You sat on a bomb, you got blown to smithereens. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. And even though Eliot was no rocket scientist, he had enough common sense to listen to himself and shut the door in the face of his emotions.

And so, neither Parker nor Eliot had worked up the courage to actually do anything about their feelings for each other. But that didn't mean that they successfully buried those feelings and were able to get on with their lives. It was there in the middle, changing them in ways that were irreversible.

It was making Eliot more tolerant to Parker and by extension, the rest of the team, finally allowing them in bit by tiny bit. It made Parker act more responsibly towards her team... though she retained her one of a kind personality most of the time, her irresponsible actions had become a thing of the past. Somehow, even without being there out in the open, their feelings for each other was like a living, breathing organism, changing them and the team in ways they'd never even imagined.

They each knew that they might never act upon the emotions that they felt for each other but it was comforting nonetheless, that someone out there cared for them... that someone they had feelings for, had the same kind of feelings for them.

Now as they pulled up to his farmhouse, Eliot could see that Parker was clearly exhausted and in a considerable amount of pain from her various injuries. He himself wasn't feeling so hot, the shoulder that Nate had reset was throbbing, as was his knee and the abuse that his ribs had taken was not making things so comfortable either.

Deciding on making an early night of it, the pair of them went through an almost practiced routine of changing, getting each other medication, checking their bandages and retiring for the night. Eliot made sure that Parker was comfortable in his spare bedroom, which had over the last couple of months come to be called 'Parker's bedroom' in his mind, before he retreated to his own bed.

He'd even changed the sheets and pillows at her request (er... demand) from a nice, soothing pale green she hated on sight, to a bright, elfin blue which almost hurt his eyes, but was deemed just right by the thief, when she'd slept over the first time... some four months ago.

They'd had to go buy new sheets for her at some godforsaken time of the night or she refused to go to sleep... So they'd trooped to a Bed, Bath and Beyond near his house and bought a couple of pairs that Parker had handpicked. Resisting her attempts to steal them out of the store had been almost as exhausting as the job they'd just finished but somehow, Eliot had managed and the tired but happy hitter and the disgruntled but comfortable thief had managed about 5 hours of good sleep that night.

Which was just about what the hitter managed to get this morning, till he was woken up by the sounds of a hungry thief rifling through his kitchen searching for junk food. (Sigh...) This was turning out to be incredibly relaxing wasn't it?

"Eliot!... You have absolutely nothing worth eating in your house..."

"Good Mornin' to you too Parker..."

His greeting was friendly enough, but the moment he saw what she was up to, Eliot's legendary temper made it's debut for the day.

"And what the heck do you think you're doing going through my cabinets with your hands and your shoulder in that condition?.. Not to mention your ankle is broken and you shouldn't be walking on it... How did you even manage to open the cabinet doors with your hands all taped up?"

"I have my ways..." she said mysteriously, wiggling her eyebrows in a weird imitation of the undercover CIA agent in a stupid movie they'd watched a couple of days back.

"Dammit! Parker... You're here cuz I don't want you to strain yourself... because I wanted to make sure someone makes you take care of youself and what do I see first thing in the morning?... You're cheerfully going through my cabinets looking for junk food..."

"But Eliot... I'm hungry... and I didn't wanna wake you"

"Well I'm awake now... and we're gonna be having french toast for breakfast... now go set up the table while I get everything ready here..."

"Awesome... you're the best"

He certainly hadn't expected her to react to his making French Toast for breakfast the way she did... She jumped down from the counter, hurriedly pressed a small kiss on his cheek and proceeded to dance away happily... or at least she tried, before remembering the broken ankle and limping out pitifully.

Forty-five minutes later, breakfast was done, the dishes cleared away and the two of them were at a dearth for things to do. After checking Parker's black eye and deeming it necessary that she put an ice pack on it, Eliot got one of the chemical ice packs out of his pantry and shaking it to activate the process, offered it to the thief who hissed slightly at the cold touch before thanking the hitter in a small voice.

Something it seemed, was bothering the little thief ever since they'd finished breakfast, which was odd, considering the fact that she'd been in remarkably good spirits that morning.

"Parker?... Is something botherin' you?... Is it your ankle?"

Parker shook her head no, all the while looking slightly mournful, staring at something behind him. Eliot was stumped. He had never seen the blonde lose her good cheer so fast and due to something that she didn't want to share.

Normally, the hitter would've just left her alone to work her issues out, he always got frustrated when people hemmed and hawed about something instead of just getting to the point. So it was mighty uncharacteristic of him, when he found himself wanting to help Parker with whatever it was that was troubling her. There was something about her, that just seemed to bring the all the world's protective instincts alive in him.

With no clue about what was troubling her, Eliot stared at her absentmindedly, trying to work it out, when he noticed that though she wasn't looking at him, she was staring at something behind him. Turning, he found that Parker was indeed intently staring at her reflection in a large mirror that hung in the corridor behind him.

"Parker... Is that black eye bothering you?.. Because I am sure it'll get better in a couple of days... It shouldn't even be visible by the end of the week..."

"No... it's not that..." came the mumbled reply

Eliot waited, thinking that the sentence wasn't over but with nothing more forthcoming from the thief, the hitter was close to punching something... or someone in his frustration. But before he could demand answers from her, the thief broke out into a veritable sob

"It's my hair... Just look at it Eliot... It's so... so"

And she started to sniffle. No kidding... Sniffle. Parker didn't cry... she just sniffled pitifully.

The most daring thief in the world, who made light work of stealing priceless paintings and artifacts from super secure museums, was in tears over her tangled hair. Why were women so hard to understand?... (Sigh...) Since there was nothing he could do about his understanding of women, while he could deal with the blubbering thief on his couch, he chose the latter course of action.

"Parker... Stop crying. You can just wash your hair and comb out all the tangles... It'll be as good as new in no time..."

For the life of him, Eliot couldn't understand why she started shaking her head and sniffling even more at that.

"I can't..."

And it all became clearer when she showed him her bandaged up hands... her eyes watery and her cute button nose red from trying not to break out into sobs. Without meaning to, without even knowing that he was saying something, Eliot blurted out

"I could do it for you..."

What the hell? Did he just offer to help wash Parker's hair for her?... Eliot couldn't believe himself... but he had to believe the cautious, wary expression taht was sliding onto her face.

"You would?... Why would you do that?" she asked as if she wasn't sure if he wouldn't knock her out while she was in the bathroom and steal something from her. It frustrated him to no end and he found himself snapping at her

"What?... I just offered to help you out... If you don't wanna, just say so. No need to jump down my throat for that tigress..."

He turned around to leave the room when he heard a small 'okay'. Turning to her again, he found her nodding, with a slightly assessing expression on her face

"Okay... you can help me"

As if she was doing him a big favor by allowing him to wash her hair, Eliot nodded back automatically, happy that she trusted him enough to let him in this much, but found himself thinking

'Dear God Spencer... What the heck have you gotten yourself into now?'

That thought was repeating like some freak mantra in his mind when, ten minutes later, he found himself in the small bathroom attached to Parker's bedroom with the thief who was clad only in her black tank top, a pair of sleep shorts... short shorts... very short shorts that did nothing to help the hitter regain his cool. Short shorts that did nothing to hide the long, toned length of the thief's legs that looked like every red blooded man's dream come true. He himself had stripped down to a pair of gym shorts and henleys, his hair tied back in a ponytail.

"Okay... so how are we doin' this?"

"Oh... I thought you'd have some idea."

That had the hitter stumped. He stared at the blonde for a couple of seconds before uttering the words that simultaneously sent a shiver of arousal as well as dread down both their spines.

"I guess we'll both have to get into the shower."

Swallowing hard at the visuals that the sentence generated in her mind, Parker nodded.

"Let's get the bandages off, we don't want to wet them... and we should also get your hands and ankle bagged... Come with me"

Parker meekly followed Eliot back to the kitchen where he found a couple of plastic bags and wrapped them securely around her injured hands and ankle, taping them into place so that none of the water got into the bandages. The touch of his hands on the skin of her wrists, strong but gentle, warm and capable was like a drug.

She prayed that the perceptive hitter wouldn't realize just what his simple touch was doing to her... Oh this was a bad idea. If this was what him touching her hands did to her, how could she survive him in the shower, when he got his hands in her hair?... When they were both inside the shower cubicle, dripping wet from head to toe? As she felt her pulse ratcheting up at just the thought, Parker fought with her brain to try and turn away from where she found herself going. This wouldn't do... wouldn't do at all.

She however found herself silently trailing him back into the cute little bathroom adjacent to her room in Eliot's house. She'd never had such a pretty bathroom of her own before, and she was thoroughly enjoying her experiences in the small chamber.

But somehow she knew that today's experience in her bathroom would rate at the top of her list for atleast the next decade, even if nothing happened other than getting her hair shampooed... Was she actually hoping that something else would happen?... Hard to say... things between her and Eliot were so confusing. Most of the time she had no idea where she stood with the hitter.

But if there was something she knew, it was the fact that she liked him... a lot. And that she would've liked to continue looking into this new but weird feeling if only she'd been confident of one of two things... One, that it wouldn't affect the team and two, that Eliot liked her back, even if just a little bit. Sadly, both these conditions were covered in clouds of uncertainty and Parker had no way to get her answers.

Eliot had already turned on the shower and set the water to the perfect warmth. The water was just right, the shower filling the small bathroom with millions of tiny droplets of water spray that lingered in the air and settled like little snowflakes on Parker's body. Shivering slightly both due to the spray as well as a sense of apprehension, Parker awkwardly hobbled into the shower stall, careful not to bump into Eliot or slip on the already damp tiles because of her plastic covered foot.

Once under the water spray, the thief sighed unconsciously at the glorious feeling of having the warm water rushing all over her skin, her hair and just washing away all the dirt, the tiredness, the soreness and the stiffness in her muscles. She could almost feel her muscles relaxing, her body easing into a laxer stance. Without even opening her eyes, Parker knew that Eliot was also feeling the same... she could almost hear him sigh out in pleasure as the water cascaded over his body too, plastering his black henleys and gym shorts to his toned body.

Once he was sure that Parker was completely wet, he turned her slightly with his hands on her shoulders, took up the bottle of her favorite jasmine shampoo and proceeded to squeeze a healthy amount on to his palm. Taking a deep breath, he lightly brushed his shampoo filled hands over her hair, making sure he didn't pull on any tangles, and started to massage it in.

Eliot was very worried that he might inadvertently do something that hurt her or scared her because this intimate act of being in the shower with her was affecting the hitter in all sorts of ways. He'd never expected something so simple, such as everyday act to take on so much emotional connotations, but again, this was Parker he was talking about. Anything that involved her and him had emotional connotations that he hadn't wanted to deal with... until now.

Now, as he rubbed his soapy hands in Parker's wet golden hair, Eliot faced the fact... that he couldn't even think about Parker doing this with anyone else. Just the thought of her being this trusting, this open with some other guy made his blood boil. While the fact that she trusted in him so much made him feel happier than he'd let himself feel in a long time, the knowledge of having finally faced up to his feelings for Parker also gave him cause for worry.

Now that he was aware of the depth of his feelings for the little thief, he'd have to do something about it and just the thought of talking it out with her gave him the shivers. Yeah. World's best retrieval expert, the man who didn't flinch at the sight of a dozen guns pointed at him, the man who could kill in his sleep, was deathly scared of discussing his feelings for his partner.

Especially of the part where she told him she didn't have any such feelings for him and proceeded to walk out of his life... or rather, knowing Parker, she'd jump out his window and disappear into thin air. That... that was what scared him. That she would run away... leave them all... leave the team because of him.

Parker was in heaven. That was all there was to it. She couldn't feel so safe, so secure and at the same time so relaxed and taken care of, anywhere else. The feel of Eliot's strong yet gentle hands and the firm touch of his fingers on her scalp was as close to heaven as she could get while she was still alive.

When she'd become uncharacteristically emotional about her hair in front of him, she'd never expected, never thought that Eliot would offer to help her the way he was. Just the thought of being in the shower with the sexiest man in her acquaintance should've been enough to send her pulse skittering... but the reality of it was so much more than that. She was obviously extremely turned on by it, but this was also the most relaxed she'd ever been.

There was just something about Eliot Spencer that made her want to let down all her barriers... to let him in. She already trusted him with her life... everyday on the job, but now she realized that she was also ready to trust this man with her heart. These feelings that had resided in the region of her heart for the past so many months had simply grown too big to stay there... She would have to let them out or suffer the consequences.

She had just about decided that she was going crazy when she felt Eliot move around her to get to the hand shower so that he could rinse off the shampoo. The unexpected movement caused him to brush up against her, making both of them stiffen at the contact.

Eliot could see Parker's breathing go up a notch as he reached around her again, this time making sure that he wasn't pressed up against her. Turning on the shower in his hand, he proceeded to rinse her hair, with Parker attempting to help by leaning her head back for him.

This was quite unfortunate for him because it allowed him, from his position right behind her, to be able to see the contours of her face, the long line of her neck, down to the scoop neck of her tank top, which was sagging due to the added weight of the water. Knowing that he shouldn't be staring down her top when she was trusting him with herself like this, Eliot tried very hard to avert his eyes and concentrate on the task. But damn it all!... he was a red blooded man... and he couldn't be faulted for this because god knew he'd tried... tried hard even. But this was just too much for even him.

Without meaning to, Eliot found himself leaning closer and closer, his lips coming to rest on the curve of her neck. Dimly, he was aware of her stiffening against him, but he was too busy exploring the skin of her shoulder with his mouth to even be worried about it. God!... It was so unfair that the simple curve of her neck, which he saw everyday, should prove to be such a tempting piece of skin. It was almost as if he couldn't have stopped himself even if there was an earthquake happening right then.

Parker might've stiffened in surprise at the first touch of his lips on her neck, but she was almost leaning fully against him now, her body boneless, her head leaning back further, giving him full access to her neck and shoulder. Eliot shuddered at the feel of her skin on his lips... the fresh taste of the water drops sliding off her skin, the heat rolling off of her, the scent of her shampoo and something that was uniquely Parker all combined to create a completely heady experience.

The shower in his hand descended slowly till it was spraying water onto the tiles, unheeded as he concentrated on imprinting the small patch of Parker's skin beneath her ear to his memory. A slight, stifled moan from Parker gave him the encouragement he needed to pursue his occupation with greater gusto and the hitter found himself pressing down on her shoulders, turning her around so that she could face him. One look into her eyes and he was lost.

Parker was now only dimly aware of anything that wasn't Eliot in her haze of desire. She was aware of her world tilting on its axis, shifting into a terrifyingly new position as she turned to face him. The feel of his wet, toned body pressed up against the softness of hers was almost her undoing. She could literally feel her body heating up under his gaze, her pulse sky rocketing as her breathing faltered.

The expression in Eliot's eyes was so hot, literally glowing with things that she might not have wanted to think about before now, things she might've pretended to not understand... except now, there was no way she could do any of it. She knew that he knew... he knew that she understood, that she was reacting to him exactly the way he was to her. They would have to face this... this terrifying new thing they were building, whatever or however it turned out to be. But not now.

Now they were both focused on what was happening... the juggernaut was now firmly beyond their individual controls, though how it mattered, both of them couldn't have told you. It seemed like the most perfect, the rightest thing in the world to be doing.

Words were unnecessary. Just superfluous bits of noises that had no meaning compared to their inherent understanding of each other. Words hadn't been necessary when they'd both decided not to act on their feelings and words certainly weren't necessary now.

As one, the thief and the hitter leaned towards each other, their mouths fusing for the first time. This was no tentative, shy first kiss between a boy and a girl... this was a man and a woman... a melding of souls... a fierce, passionate, almost bruising act of possession that spoke volumes about the amount of passion that had stayed buried till now.

And once it was out, there was no bringing it back... no checking the flow. Like a dam bursting, the passion that had been held under such tight check for such a long time, rushed out in a flood, the two of them not even aware of their actions... much less thinking about them.

Before they knew it, Parker had her her back against one of the glass walls of the shower stall, legs wrapped around Eliot's waist and her arms wound around his neck as he held her close to him, his lips still attached to hers, taking everything she was prepared to give. And she wasn't holding anything back.

In that one moment, decisions had been made and they weren't prepared to look beyond the present moment now. They would have to work this out, talk about it and make sure that it didn't affect either the team or their professional lives, but all that could happen later, once their mutual need was sated.

If they forgot to dry off before moving to Eliot's bedroom, favoring his king size over the twin in hers, or if they didn't get around to fully washing the shampoo out of Parker's hair till about 3 am, they couldn't be faulted for it... if Parker's hair ended up even more tangled in the morning from all the rolling around in the king size or his hands spearing into the golden waves repeatedly, Parker wasn't too worried about it.

Eliot wasn't too put out by more and more of his house being taken over by the little thief... his little thief he corrected himself feeling a sunny smile fill every corner of his heart, over the next few days... in fact he even gave her a key. It was more of a symbolic gesture rather than a useful one... she'd even looked at him for a second like he was stupid, but she'd taken it anyway and left it attached on a silver chain around Bunny's neck.

That was when he'd known... known for sure at least. He'd known it for a long time... but this time he was sure. Parker was here to stay... in his home, in his life. It was as serious for her as it was for him.

And if they ended up more and more tangled up in each other over the next few years, well they were just the luckiest people in the world to have found the other half of their souls... and that was all there was to it.

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><p><em><strong>AN: So that was it... hope you guys liked it just as much as you seemed to like all previous chapters... next up is a prompt by sararandom... a nice one too if i might say so myself. Stay tuned... and keep readin' n reviewin' guys... **_

_**Hope you liked this one too Mercedes... appreciate your thoughts on this... :)**_

_**Lotsa luv and fortune cookies**_

_**Macybear**_

_**p.s. Ninjaaa ... if you can, plz get back to me on that review... Sorry to say this but i didn't understand what the review was about. It sounded yummy though... so if you could explain, it'd be awesome :)  
><strong>_


	8. You, Me and a little magic kissy

_**A/N: Okay... so here's the next installment. Sorry for taking such a long time with it.**_

_**So this one goes out to sararandom... thanks for the awesome prompt!... Hope you like what I did with it.**_

_**sararandom said**_

_**If I could suggest one, my prompt would be,they always say "kiss a boo-boo & it makes it feel better."Could be cute AND sexy. Hope maybe you'll a take on that!**_

_**So here's my take on it... hope y'all like it. Don't forget to review and write in more such prompts for me to take a stab at...**_

_**Oh and I just wanted to say... I started with the idea of making a short, sweet one, but somehow this just kept growing and growing till it became... this. :|**_

_**Edit note: anything in single quotes which is italic ed is character's thoughts...  
><strong>_

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><p>It was a relatively tranquil Thursday afternoon... the Leverage Associates team had just come back to Portland from a week long job in California and were enjoying a rare day off. It had been a run of the mill, almost boring job this time and the team had been able to pull it off without any problems.<p>

The only hitch had been that Parker and Eliot'd had very little to do this time and as a result, Parker had become quite bored. And everyone knew that a bored Parker was a dangerous Parker... for everyone's sanity that is.

The only sounds that were heard around the loft were the muted clicks of a game controller coming from Hardison's office, a light humming from Sophie's as she sang along with a soft operatic ballad that played in Nate's stereo and soft clinks of metal and glass from the kitchen, where Eliot was busy cleaning their breakfast dishes and wiping down the counters.

Parker was lounging on the couch, absently changing channels with the big screen TV running on mute. The thief's blonde head was hanging upside down from the couch, her hair trailing the carpet while her feet were propped up against the wall behind the headrest.

She was in a pretty bad mood as she'd been summarily packed out of the kitchen after being found playing with Eliot's precious knives... seriously, that man had an unhealthy obsession with his kitchenware. He wasn't even that obsessive about his secret diary with all those phone numbers in it, which he kept in the drawer with the false bottom under a stack of papers and other boring things in his office.

But that wasn't the only reason Parker was in a snit. Before being kicked out of the kitchen, she'd received the same treatment from Sophie and Hardison...

She'd been so bored today morning that she'd felt like jumping around, just to get rid of the excess energy... it was raining, so she couldn't even go out to get in some rappelling. So, she'd been trying to get around the rooms without touching the floor at all, when accidentally, she broken one of Sophie's 'supposedly' priceless crystal vases. Sure, it was pretty and all, but who would pay so much for a weirdly shaped glass bowl, when they could pay the same thing and get a shiny little diamond or ruby for it?

But Sophie had gone on and on about the hand cut crystal, an antique that it seemed, had belonged to a bunch of really boring people before her. Without even giving Sophie the time to turn to her, Parker had silently tip-toed out of the room, leaving the rambling grifter alone with her shattered Murano vase.

After that was an almost repeat performance with Hardison, who'd kicked her out when she'd accidentally pressed a nice little shiny blue button on his game controller and supposedly killed off his character on the game. He'd ranted up and down the room about how much time he'd invested in getting to whichever level he'd been at, how he'd never get it done again and how he was never going to forgive her for this. And he'd pushed her out, shut the door behind her and locked it tight.

Her last port of call seemed to be Nate, but even she wasn't stupid enough to go into Nate's room when he played that weird music. If there was one thing that creeped Parker out, it was that weird sort-of music that Nate loved to play on his stereo sometimes... She shuddered remembering the time Nate and Sophie had talked her into going to one of those creepy singing plays with them, it had been one of the worst experiences of her life. She would take being starved or tortured over listening to opera music any day.

And that led to her latest episode in the kitchen with the hitter. He was, ironically, the one who was most tolerant with her... He'd just put a firm but gentle hand on her back and guided her to the couch, giving her the remote before retreating to the kitchen. That was what brought us to the present moment when she was boredly twirling her hair while ignoring some rerun that flickered on the screen.

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><p>Eliot knew that Parker was bored... he also knew that he would eventually be the one the rest of them turned to when she became restless. Somehow, he seemed to have some control over her when she couldn't come under anyone else's. He didn't know how or why it was, but hey... he wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth, just counting his blessings and moving on. Coming back to bored Parker, Eliot sighed, knowing that he would have to deal with this sooner rather than later. He couldn't let this go on for too much longer before she got out of hand.<p>

That decided, the hitter finished wiping down the counters and walking out the kitchen encountered the thief in her upside down position on the couch.

"Parker... I am goin' shopping. Wanna come?"

"Nooooo... I hate it!... I went shopping with Sophie once and it was horrible. I am not going back there again. You can't make me."

If anyone could've managed to look even remotely stubborn and vaguely threatening while remaining upside down, it was Parker. Eliot had to smile at the mental picture of him and Parker in a boutique like the kind Sophie favored, surrounded by women's clothing.

"It's not that kind of shopping darlin'... I am going grocery shopping, at the supermarket. It's like the bodega where you buy your milk and cereal, only bigger."

"Will there be cereal here?... Can I get some cookies too?"

She hurriedly righted herself as she asked, a billion dollar smile brightening her elfin face. At his affirmative, Parker was off like a shot, out of the room before Eliot'd even gathered that she was coming with him.

"Come on... hurry up slowpoke, let's go!"

Muttering something about how he was sure to kick himself for this decision, Eliot shook his head in silent defeat and followed the blonde thief out to his truck, quite apprehensive, now that the crazy blonde had agreed to come to the supermarket with him. She was bouncing in her seat and humming along with some song only she heard as the truck made its way down the streets. Eliot had to smile at her childish antics and his feeling of apprehension started to slowly melt away.

Once there, Eliot had barely stepped inside the air conditioned building when he was almost mowed down by a cart being raced by the crazy blonde thief. She was clearly excited by the whole aisle devoted to cereals and so totally intent on getting to it that she almost ran down the people in her way.

Once they'd gotten about half a dozen boxes of about half a dozen cereals, she winded down a bit. Parker's eyes had gone wide at the array of cereals at the store. Unable to decide on which ones she wanted, she'd picked a couple of each kind... there were ones with shapes, ones that had toys inside, ones that crackled when you poured milk on them, ones that you could eat without milk and even ones that changed color when you soaked them...

After she'd put some more packets of cookies and some junk food into the cart, Parker wandered off, letting Eliot take care of the rest of the 'boring' shopping. Eliot wasn't sure whether to be relieved that she'd left him alone to do the serious grocery shopping or to be worried that she was running loose in a supermarket which had almost no security. Deciding that he would worry about it when... not if, something happened... he was sure something would, come on... this was Parker they were talking about. Eliot sighed to himself, but went on to find a good couple of roast chickens for his pantry hoping that his little thief could last about the half an hour it would take for him to finish his shopping, without any major hitches.

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><p>Parker was spending the rest of the half hour wandering around the various aisles of the store, amusing herself by reading all the weird and funny names on the different labels of things stacked up there. And the security at this store was beyond laughable. There were security cameras... half of which were clearly not hooked up, so many camera blind spots and atleast 15 different ways she could get out of there in about as many seconds. This was too easy and completely beneath her level, plus there was nothing tempting enough to steal. God... shopping was so boring!... wonder why Eliot did it week after week after week.<p>

She was wandering down the aisle of frozen foods when she heard the sounds of a cart racing down the corner, looking up just in time to jump aside to avoid the cart that was turning the corner at insane speeds. With her speed and precision, she landed on top of a stack of apples that were on display, but was able to sit up there without disturbing the pyramid or squashing even a single fruit.

The reason for the runaway cart was soon apparent as a high pitched wail erupted from somewhere behind the handles of the cart and two little starfish shaped hands extended from beneath it. Soon, a little boy, about 4 years old crawled out from behind the cart, his big, blue eyes overflowing with tears, nose red from crying. Small hiccups liberally interspersed his long wails as he turned to look at the woman fast approaching him.

In a second, she was next to the little boy, kissing his forehead, murmuring softly to him and stroking his tousled blond hair lightly, trying to get him to calm down. Parker was still perched on the fruit display, watching this spectacle unfold in front of her with intense fascination. The lady then started speaking in soft, hushed tones to the little boy and he pointed to the elbow that he was holding with his other hand. It seemed to be slightly injured, the skin around the joint already flushing red...

The lady tutted softly and rubbed the area around the bump lightly, treating it and the boy as if it was a major injury and not just a little bump.

"Mama... Kiss my boo-boo?"

"Of course darling... I will kiss you boo-boo and all the pain will go away like magic"

Lifting the little boy into her arms, the lady pressed a soft kiss on the child's elbow, his forehead and hugged him close before walking up to the errant cart and pushing it away, still talking softly to the now calm and satisfied child.

Parker was fascinated and shocked by what she had seen. She hadn't known that magic kisses that took away pain existed. And she didn't think Eliot knew either... or he would've kissed her dislocated shoulder from last time better... or maybe even that troublesome broken ankle from the job before could've been made better by a magic kiss. She would ask him, and if he didn't know, she would make sure he learned it from somewhere. That decided, Parker went in search of the hitter to ask him about magic kisses and making the pain go away.

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><p>Eliot had just finished getting everything on his list when Parker almost barreled into him.<p>

"Eliot!... Where have you been? I've been running around the store searching for you..."

"Whoa... slow down Parker. What is it?"

"What do you know about magic kisses?"

"..."

Oh... he was not going to blurt out what was running through his mind right at that moment. He couldn't think about Parker like that... he shouldn't, but come on, he was a normal guy and she was the one going around asking about magic kisses...

"Well?"

'_Get your mind outta the gutter Spencer and pay attention!_'

"...huh?"

"Come on Eliot!... Tell me what you know about magic kisses that take pain away."

Eliot just shook his head assuming that this was one more of her Parker-isms and started walking to the checkout counter, only to be pulled back by Parker's strong hand

"Eliot Spencer... I am talking to you and I want you to answer that question..."

(Sigh!...)

"Parker, I could answer a question if I understood it... But I honestly have no idea what the hell you're talkin' about."

He heard her muttering to herself something that sounded like 'Just like I thought... he doesn't know anything about it'.

_'Oh god was he going to regret this...'_

"Parker... How did you come to know of whatever it is you were talkin' about just now?"

"Just around the corner at the frozen foods aisle..."

'_Serves you right Spencer... Ask a stupid question and get an equally stupid answer... Well, we've started this, let's finish it now...'_

"Okaayyy... Who told you about it?"

"No one..."

'_Okay... this was getting more than frustrating'_

"If no one told you then how do you know?"

"Well... I saw it happen..."

'_Ah... now we're getting somewhere... let's see where exactly this goes_'

"Okay. What did you see?"

"There was this kid... must've been about 4 years old, he was running about with a cart and bumped himself on one of the shelves... So there he was, bawling his eyes out, nose all red and snotty, face all scrunched up weirdly... like this"

And she proceeded to scrunch up her face like she was crying. Eliot couldn't help but smile, but he'd already put up with a lot of this and his patience was almost at its limit...

"Get on with it Parker..." he growled.

'_That should get her butt in gear..._'

But instead, her face just slipped from that ridiculously cute expression to a grown up scowl for a bunch of seconds before she went on

"So this woman comes up to him, she tried to get him to stop yelling the place down... When he was slightly quieter, she asked him if he hurt himself and the kid showed her an elbow he'd bumped onto the nearby shelf and he asked her to 'kiss his boo-boo'..."

She explained, putting up air quotes when she said 'kiss his boo-boo'.

So that was the mystery behind 'magic kisses'... Eliot wanted to laugh at the little blonde thief's innocence but he settled for an annoyed huff as he walked off to total up his purchases.

She followed him silently all through the parking lot and the loading process, but when they both slid into the truck, she asked him again

"So... you don't know anything about magic kisses?"

'_Apparently this discussion wasn't over yet...'_

"Parker..."

"Do you know anywhere you can maybe learn it?... If necessary I could identify that woman. Oh is this supposed to be some kind of secret thing?...It has to be. You think we should maybe kidnap her and force her to tell us her secret?"

'_Oh no... This wasn't going in the right direction... better stop it right now before she had a plan worked out and the blue prints spread out on the table'_

"Parker stop... There are no magic kisses okay?... They're just normal kisses. Mom's often do this to small kids to make them feel better. The kiss doesn't make tha pain go away."

"But I saw it... It worked. She kissed his elbow and he stopped crying... She made it stop hurting."

"No Parker... kids often cry because they've suffered a shock or are scared of something more than the fact that it hurts them. When his mom kissed and hugged him, it made the kid feel safe and loved... that was all it was. His bump would still be hurting just the same, only now, he wouldn't be thinking about it all that much because his mom managed to divert his attention"

"No...I don't believe you. I saw it. It works... if you don't know about it Eliot, you could've just said so... There's no need to insist that magic kisses don't exist"

Okay... he'd been patient enough till now, but this was it. IT. Fullstop right there. Plus, he just had a super bright idea... grinning evilly in his mind, Eliot turned to the annoyed thief

"Parker... I told you once and I'll say it again. Magic kisses don't exist. If you don't believe me, go ask Hardison. He'll help you search for it on the internet. If you happen to find something, I will believe you... but till then, you believe what you like and stop bugging me alright?"

The suggestion seemed to go down well with Parker and in no time, she was back to her normal, weird, childish self.

_'Oh Hardison... you can thank me later for this man..._'

Eliot was shaking his head slightly and grinning to himself as he pulled out of the supermarket parking lot. He'd fielded that well, if he might say so himself... almost worthy of a metaphorical 'pat on the back'.

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><p>Once they were back at Nate's loft and the groceries were all put away in their proper places, Eliot settled down in front of the TV with a beer in his hand to catch up on some hockey while Parker disappeared into Hardison's office to bug him about 'magic kisses'. Sophie was as usual out shopping or spa-ing or something... So for now, all was fine in the world of Eliot Spencer.<p>

Nate stepped into the room, glancing around to make sure neither Sophie nor Parker was there in the immediate vicinity

"Sophie's out and Parker's busy bugging Hardison... you're clear man.."

"Thanks Eliot... What... What is Parker bugging Hardison about exactly? Do I even want to know?"

"Oh.. Something about 'magic kisses'.. " the hitter said with a very serious expression on his face.

Nate was almost taken aback for a second before he noticed the amusement rife in Eliot's eyes and settled himself into the couch for an explanation that he was sure was going to be enormously diverting. Both men were hard pressed to stop chuckling when Eliot finished narrating the story of what had happened at the supermarket and how he'd sent her off to bug the hacker for information about the so called 'magic' kiss.

The rest of the day was spent in comparative normalcy with Nate and Eliot enjoying a couple of games of hockey and baseball in quiet company, Sophie enjoying her shopping experience and Parker forcing Hardison to run and rerun searches on the internet and any other federal and non-federal databases he could tap into for information about 'kisses that had the power of taking pain away'.

After searching for almost two whole days, Parker had to give up on her quest to find the secret of magic kisses but there was no way she was going to stop believing in them. I mean how could she, when she'd seen the evidence of their existence herself. She'd also been dissuaded from kidnapping the woman at the supermarket by the rest of her team.

Dammit... She could've easily gotten out of it if Eliot hadn't gotten her to promise on Bunny's life that she wouldn't kidnap the woman or her son to get information about the kiss. She almost hated the hitter sometimes for how much he understood her thought processes. It looked like she had to give up on this thing for the moment... but she would find the secret behind this magic kiss thing if it was the last thing she did.

* * *

><p>For the next week, all was well in Leverage land. Then, they ran a con that put Eliot and Parker in the firing line... literally. Though both of them were able to dodge the bullets raining down on them from the guns of some very angry mobsters, they were quite injured by the time they got back to Lucille and then Nate's loft. Eliot managed to wrap up their broken ribs, tend to Parker's heavily bruised shoulder and ice a whole lot of other bumps and bruises before they finished for the night.<p>

He was just about finished putting away the last of the medical supplies in the closet, only he and Parker were left by then... the others had already crashed for the night after getting assurance from the hitter that he would be able to take care of it by himself.

"Parker come on... let's get you comfortable in Nate's guest bedroom so I can go crash on his couch bed"

The hitter walked out of the kitchen, assuming that Parker would follow him, but not sensing her presence behind him in the hallway, he turned to find that the thief was still sitting in the barstool where she had been for the last fifteen minutes. It didn't seem like she hadn't heard him cuz she was looking at him... with an expression of expectation.

'_Uh oh... this was going to be a long night. You don't really want to go there Spencer, do you?_'

Oh who was he kidding?... The decision had already been made the second he turned to see that she wasn't behind him

Sighing in defeat, the hitter went back to the kitchen and standing in front of the little blonde, asked her

"What is it Parker?... Come on I am tired, I need some sleep if I am to function properly tomorrow."

Without answering him, she just leaned closer to him, pushing her sprained and bandaged wrist in the direction of his face.

Okay... he didn't get it. And he didn't have too much patience left

"What is it Parker?" he was not even trying to disguise the growl in his voice now.

She looked at him like he was stupid, changed her expression to tell him that she was annoyed with him and pushed her hand further towards him

"Kiss my boo-boo..."

That stopped him cold. He'd been almost ready to rip someone's head off with the frustration of whatever game she was playing when he was so exhausted. Whatever he'd been expecting her to say, this wasn't it.

"Come on Eliot... Just kiss it and make my pain go away... I know you said that magic kisses don't exist and that you don't know how to kiss someone's pain away but I want to just give it a try. So just kiss it and we can go to sleep..."

Just as he was about to shake is head at her sheer blindness to common sense and her childishness, she said the one thing that was guaranteed to melt the hitter.

"Please Eliot..."

Like he'd already said before, they all had an over blown case of the 'white knight syndrome'... and Eliot had it worse that anyone else. He couldn't resist any one who was genuinely in need of help. He might even take up a lost cause if he felt that he could give the client even the smallest shred of hope.

The whole team knew of his protectiveness and often took advantage of his softer qualities in tiny, non-invasive ways, which, Eliot had no problems going along with... Nate always got Eliot to take care of feeding them and cleaning up afterwards, Sophie always got him to listen to her when she wanted to talk and Parker and Hardison just shamelessly took advantage of the hitter whenever they wanted to get something from him.

But everyone knew... that he was most susceptible to Parker's puppy dog eyes. He didn't know where she'd learned to do that, but there was no way he could refuse her anything when she pulled that expression out. It was just simply too cute to resist... as it was now too. The puppy dog eyes coupled with the rare 'please' did it and the hitter sighed in defeat again.

Moving closer to the little thief, he leaned down and pressed a tentative, soft kiss to the bandage that covered her wrist. He then leaned up to her shoulder and pressed another warm kiss there.

She clearly hadn't expected him to continue after the kiss on her wrist and Eliot felt her breathing hitch a bit when he pressed that kiss on the bare skin of her shoulder. She'd stripped down to a black tank top so that it would be easier for him to treat her wounds and her shoulders were left bare as a result.

Eliot knew then, that he shouldn't have given in to Parker's demand. Now that he'd started, he found that he couldn't stop. It had almost become an obsession, the way he couldn't concentrate on anything other than her warm, soft and utterly silky skin... the warmth of it was comforting, the softness and smoothness amazing and the taste of her skin was just addictive.

Eliot had always been aware that Parker was a beautiful woman and had it been a different life, he would've definitely acted on the tension that he knew existed between them. But this was reality... not some dream he'd conjured up, and he couldn't afford to let things run away with him. He had to stop... right now.

'_Okay, just one more kiss on that bruise marring the smooth skin of her cheek.'_

Without thinking, Eliot moved in closer so that he could reach her cheek with his lips. Pressing another soft kiss on the bruise, he felt Parker's breathing become irregular. He was aware that he was affecting her in some way, but he wasn't sure whether it was in a good way or not. Still, she wasn't kicking him off or stabbing a fork into his chest, so he guessed that he wasn't in dangerous territory yet. So he pulled back a little bit to gauge her reaction. And that was where he made the biggest mistake yet... he looked into her eyes.

Parker was having trouble concentrate on anything that wasn't Eliot. She'd never expected that he would take her request..err... demand seriously. He had... he'd kissed her bandaged wrist and she thought that that was it and she could go to bed. She hadn't felt anything much from the kiss... of course it had been through the bandage so she wasn't quite convinced that magic kisses didn't exist... maybe they just weren't doing it right.

And then, he'd leaned in further to press another soft kiss onto the shoulder he'd tended to half an hour ago. She couldn't explain it... even if she tried for an hour, she might not be able to come up with an explanation for what she felt when his warm, soft lips came into contact with the skin of her shoulder.

She'd always felt this connection with Eliot. Something more than she felt with Sophie or Nate or even Hardison, who was most similar to her in his life history. When they'd first started working together, she'd just been irritated by Eliot's over protectiveness and his approach to things, which invariably was way different from hers. But over the years, they managed to find a comfortable middle, reach some sort of an understanding that made them work better than any other pair in the team, even Sophie and Nate who had like a decade and a half of history and unresolved feelings.

It had never made sense to her... the hiding feelings and acting differently in front of each other. Whenever Parker felt something, she just went out and said it, hang the consequences. But then Eliot Spencer happened and she finally started to understand where Sophie was coming from, though she hadn't told anyone, not even Sophie about it.

It was going to be her own little secret and there was no way she was divulging it to anyone else. Parker didn't know what had been the trigger, somehow, she'd been in the middle of it before she knew it was even happening. One day she'd woken up and started looking at Eliot in a different light... that was that. Maybe it was some girl who flirted with him, maybe it was that woman hitter, maybe it was his new hair, it could've been anything but something was different about Eliot in Parker's mind and she sat up and started to take notice.

After that it had been a slow but steady process of falling deeper and deeper into this whirlpool of emotions that she knew nothing about, but she'd successfully been in denial about that... until now. Faced with the hitter in such close quarters, she could see the expression half hidden in his cerulean eyes. The shockingly blue eyes glittered with something that she didn't think she could ever see in there... for her. And she reacted... not physically... she knew this wasn't the time for that.

She finally let some of those emotions running amok in her brain out into her eyes, letting the hitter take a glimpse into her heart for the first time. It was done and all she could do now was hope that he would be kind with whatever he saw in there. She could handle it if he chose to ignore her feelings... but if he said something derogatory, which she almost surely knew he wouldn't do, or if it caused him to pull away from her or the team, she didn't know how she would take it.

So taking a deep breath and gathering her courage, she confidently stared back into his eyes, letting him see everything she'd been trying to hide for the last so many months. And the deep seated emotions that were reflected back to her in Eliot's eyes were just what she'd hoped she would see but feared she wouldn't.

The emotions there were cautious, almost wary in the beginning, but as he became surer of what he was seeing in her face, her eyes, Eliot's eyes became clearer and clearer. Soon, they were like deep summer pools of still water, reflecting all the sunlight falling on them... almost dancing with happiness, calm with the surity of their emotions and clear, with the hitter's habitual confidence, that things were finally, going to work out for the better.

He slowly leaned forward and pressed another soft, long kiss on Parker's forehead. The soft, warm lips on her temple felt a comforting blanket surrounding her. Both of them sighed softly, the deeply emotional nature of their silent revelations showing on their countenances. Parker tried valiantly to stifle the small yawn... she was well and truly exhausted, but the hitter, as perceptive as he was, witnessed it.

"Go to sleep now darlin'... We can deal with this later. Okay?" the hitter whispered softly.

"I already know everything I need to... But okay... we'll talk about this later. Good night Eliot..."

Parker's answer gave birth to a beautiful smile on the hitter's face as he whispered his own 'Goodnight darlin' to her

* * *

><p>But as it turned out, they had absolutely no opportunity to talk anything out for the rest of the job... which lasted almost a whole week. They were both needed in different areas, doing different things for the success of the con and they just simply had no time to themselves.<p>

But by then, it had almost become a ritual with them... a small action that brought and kept them close to each other. Every night, or whenever they could spare the time, Eliot would just pull Parker close and press soft kisses to all her injuries. All her bruises, her sprains, broken bones and cracked ribs would get meticulous attention fron his lips. And Parker had no troubles reciprocating in kind. All of Eliot's injuries she could reach, both old and new, without stripping him down, were given equal attention by the little thief.

Till now, every relationship they'd ever been a part of, had revolved heavily around the physical aspect. This one, they understood without any explanations from either side, was going to be different... just like it was different in all the other ways too. Not that there wasn't going to be a physical aspect to this relationship, not with both of them being such kinetically inclined, physically expressive people... but it was understood that that aspect of it, wasn't going to be the focus of this relationship. Parker revelled in the safety and security that Eliot gave her and Eliot couldn't help but relax in the company of the vivacious Parker, both of them changing in subtle ways, like puzzle pieces trying to fit around each other.

They'd always known that they understood each other better than anyone else... and knew that if they allowed it, if they opened their hearts to each other, they could perhaps have the one lasting relationship that they'd been missing. And now, they were both ready for it, ready to open up their hearts and minds knowing that the other would treat their trust with love and care.

However strong their connection might be, it was still very new. And they weren't ready to share it with the rest of the world... not yet. They were secure in their warm little cocoon, the little haven their created for each other with the strength of their emotions and they weren't sure if their fragile little world could stand the onslaught of the real world yet. And so they kept it a secret from everyone... even the team.

But as it was, they worked with professionals who were the best at what they did... and they hadn't gotten to where they were by being oblivious or unobservant. It was Sophie who first discovered that things were different between their hitter and their thief. But she kept her happiness at their relationship to herself, knowing that letting them know she knew about them would only serve to make them uncomfortable.

She knew that they would tell the rest of the team about 'them' as soon as they were comfortable with the notion of sharing their relationship with the rest of the motley family. So she restrained her smug smile and pretended she had no idea. Nobody knew when Nate found out, but he had and no, he wasn't telling on his sources. Hardison, who had often complained that nobody told him anything and who was probably the most unobservant person of the group, preferring to keep his eyes on the computer monitor in front of him, had no idea till the day IT happened.

* * *

><p>IT... refers to the day it all came out into the open. It was about two months down the line from the first time Parker had asked Eliot to kiss her boo-boo. Most of the times they got injured, the gang left Eliot and any other injured team member alone with his medical supplies, preferring to finish up their loose ends in the mean time so that they could all wrap up at the same time and go to their homes for some much needed rest. And most of the times, it was Eliot and Parker who got injured as they had the most physically demanding jobs in the team.<p>

So most nights after cons found them wrapping up each other's injuries and tending to each other's sprains, cuts and other assorted bruising. And kissing each other's 'boo-boo's also became a part of their ritual since that fateful night. It had become such a normal part of the whole process that they didn't even think about it anymore.

To Eliot, it was probably the most relaxing part of his day. He loved the fact that the two of them felt so comfortable around each other... the fact that he could indulge in this part of the day with Parker, his protective instincts getting full free reign.

Eliot never wanted Parker to get hurt, but that was like a pipe dream in their line of work, so he settled for always being there for her and caring for her afterwards. This gave both of them an outlet, a way to express their emotions and reassure each other that they were still going strong after everything they'd had to face during the day's work.

To Parker, this time with Eliot was like a reaffirmation of the fact that they were alive, that they were alright. Slowly, this relationship between her and Eliot had changed both of them in subtle but important ways... sanding down corners and making them better and more rounded individuals. They were still essentially the same people, but different in ways that only added to their personality, rather than take away from it.

During work, the time with Eliot was always spent concentrating on the job... both of them were thorough professionals, if nothing else. So this time held even more importance in Parker's life as this was the time when she let herself go... let all her barriers down and just let herself be taken care of.

She loved it that Eliot was so careful, so gentle with her when she knew exactly what those hands were capable of doing. She'd seen him take down huge guys with just one punch and it was amazing to feel those same hands gently ghost over cuts or bruises on her body, his touch almost cherishing her presence and the soft, warm presence of his lips that soothed and inflamed at the same time.

What had started as an innocent question on Parker's part had elevated itself into a feasting of the senses... one which the pair indulged in whenever they could. The ability to just lose themselves in each other after the trials of the day was cherished by both of them... and that is exactly what got them into trouble.

That particular day, the team had just finished running a con on a crooked CEO, who was laundering money through his home renovation company and in the process making hundreds of people homeless. Of course, the team had run into some difficulties with the muscle... but nothing Eliot couldn't take care of. Back at Nate's loft, Nate and Sophie accompanied the thief and hitter to the kitchen for their habitual medical checks and wrapping up as both Eliot and Parker had gotten injured, again.

Parker had a sprained ankle and a broken pinkie finger along with some scrapes and bruises while Eliot had a cut on his forehead and some bone bruising on his arm which'd taken some heavy impact.

Since Hardison could take care of the wrapping up by himself, Nate and Sophie had opted to remain in the kitchen with the two others, getting everyone a drink and some snacks. Not that the hitter or the thief noticed. In one corner, Eliot took care of wrapping up Parker's ankle while she cleaned and bandaged his cut at the same time.

Nate noticed the level of comfort displayed by the pair and was about to comment on it to Sophie when he stopped cold at the scene unfolding in front of him.

After cleaning up Eliot's cut and smoothing a band-aid on it, Parker casually leaned in and pressed a soft kiss on it, proceeding downwards to press another onto his waiting lips before she leaned back.

Nate was aware that something had been different with them for a long time, but he definitely didn't expect this. In fact, he was even more shocked when Eliot leaned in towards Parker in return and pressed a kiss to her wrapped finger, lightly ghosted his fingers over her bandaged ankle and pressed another kiss there before coming back to taste her lips once again. The casual manner in which all this was done told Nate that this wasn't the first time this was happening... not by a long shot.

He heard a small, stifled gasp and turned to find a smiling Sophie looking at the pair like a proud mother hen... if the beautiful grifter could ever look like a hen. Something told him that she'd known about this for some time now. That set Nate thinking... if Sophie knew and hadn't said anything, even to him, she would definitely have her reasons for it. Plus, it wasn't as if anything had changed... Parker and Eliot were thorough professionals first. If they hadn't let whatever this was between them affect their jobs till now, he was pretty sure it wouldn't change anything now that he knew about it.

Oh but he could have some fun with it now couldn't he?... So the mastermind turned back to the oddly perfect pair of their hitter and thief, to find them more... pleasurably occupied. Sometime while he had been contemplating the revelation, Eliot had drawn Parker onto his lap and was now pressing soft, comforting kisses all over her face and you could almost see Parker lapping up this affectionate attention like a cat basking in the sun. It was sweet... the way the two of them had fit with each other and somehow made it work.

Nate cleared his throat a bit, hoping to get their attention to the fact that Sophie and himself were standing right there in the kitchen, not five feet away. He was almost laughing by the time he finally got their attention, he'd had to clear his throat about five or six times, each time getting progressively louder. Sophie was in tears due to laughing so hard at the deer in the headlights expressions that made it onto both their faces at discovering that they weren't as alone as they'd thought.

Nate had never thought he would see the day when the constantly confident hitter would ever stutter, but it happened.

"N-Nate... and Sophie. W-What are you guys doing here?... I thought you'd be with Hardison"

"Of course you did Eliot... But I am happy we were here... otherwise we would've never witnessed that. Is there something you wanna share with the class guys?"

"N-No... Not exactly."

"I see..." Nate knew that not saying anything right now would get him more information than saying something... the pressure would definitely get to Parker.

"Okay... fine. Eliot and I have been... seeing each other for the past couple of months okay?... now stop that creepy thing you do..."

Nate smiled as he asked

"What are you talking about?"

"That creepy thing where you are loudly not saying something... It makes me so nervous."

It spoke volumes about how much the two of them had changed due to the relationship when Eliot just rolled his eyes and continued running his hand up and down her arm in a comforting manner, instead of saying 'There's something wrong with you'

"Why didn't you say something to us? We would've understood..."

"It wasn't that we didn't want to say anything... At first, it was too new and unstable to merit any communication... then we didn't want you to treat us any differently. I mean, had we told you about this like two months ago, would you or Nate have let us continue like nothing had changed?... Would you still partner us that much Nate, because we might lose focus on the job?"

Nate didn't even need to think before he answered

"Of course... you guys are pros. I trust you... I know you'll keep your professional and personal lives separate"

"Thanks Nate... you don't know how much that means to us."

Nobody found anything else to say for the next couple of minutes and the situation was becoming more and more awkward.

"Okay... I guess, we should go and get some rest... see you tomorrow guys"

Eliot was almost dragging Parker out of the house, slightly embarrassed at the light blush that was climbing his cheekbones at the thought of being caught by Nate and Sophie like a schoolboy on his first date. Parker of course noticed the heightened color and couldn't refrain from commenting on it, which earned her a stern glare. Of course, it didn't seem to have any effect on the little thief as she leaned up to kiss Eliot once more before happily dancing away to his truck.

Upstairs, Nate and Sophie stood watching as the unlikely pair of thieves made their way out... Had he thought about it before, Nate wouldn't have put Parker and Eliot together like that... he wouldn't have thought they would have the patience or the impetus to make a relationship work. But it seemed at is he'd been wrong. Eliot and Parker were definitely making it work and somehow, it just seemed right, almost perfect.

The mastermind smiled, shaking his head thinking,

_'It was going to be alright... Yeah... everything was going to be fine..._'

As he reached to link his fingers with those of the grifter who was standing next to him. The woman who'd spent most of her life answering to the name of Sophie Devereaux turned to him and smiled before saying

"Now all we have to do is find Hardison a girlfriend, and we're all set."

She said, squeezing his hand lightly before pulling him towards the stairs and the master bedroom.

Parker never managed to find the secret behind the so-called 'magic' kisses... but she didn't care all that much now. She had Eliot Spencer in her life now... she didn't need magic kisses to make the pain go away. Just having him around, knowing that he would never leave her, never hurt her and always take care of her, the warmth of his kisses and the security of his arms made all her pain go away... just like magic.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: So there it was... My longest one shot till date... Please review your thoughts... I love hearing from you guys and I totally appreciate your feedback  
><strong>_

_**sararandom, I hope you like it... please review your thoughts...**_

_**Lotsa luv and fortune cookies**_

_**Macybear**_


	9. Finding happiness in a crystal ball

_**A/N:Hello there... long time no see. Sorry for the delay in uploading the latest chapter guys... got stuck with some other stuff I had to write... hopefully the length of the fic makes up for its tardiness...**_

_**This one goes out to SharkGurl... Thank you for sending me such amazing prompts not once, but twice!... keep up the great work and send me some more such prompts to work with. :)**_

_**Here's hoping you like this one... don't forget to review your thoughts and ideas!.. :)**_

**SharkGurl said**

**How about Parker runs to Eliot for comfort after the debacle with that fake psychic?**

_**I changed it up a li'l bit according to what came to mind... Hope you like it anyways... :P**_

_**So without further ado, here we go...**_

* * *

><p>"It was a skateboard... No... a bicycle"<p>

The fake psychic took in Parker's hunched shoulders, her clenched fists and slightly opened mouth and knew that he'd struck gold. The way her eyes filled up with crystal tears, that was what he lived for. The power to reduce anyone he met into a blubbering mess by just asking leading questions which they themselves answered without even knowing it. Deciding to press a little further and take this one home, he continued

"You were the one who taught him to ride that bicycle..."

That was it. Parker couldn't take anymore. She had to get out of there. This guy... The mark that they'd come to run a job on wasn't some ordinary bad guy. He knew things... things she'd never told anyone. Things she couldn't even get herself to think about... This was no ordinary guy and the things he'd said had touched too close to some very bad scars in her heart.

She had to get out of there. Without even noticing it, her body responding to her mental agony, she had vaulted out of her seat, brushed past the psychic and was half way out of the studio before she even knew she'd moved.

Parker had no idea what she was doing or where she was going. All she knew was a pressing need to get out. A hundred thoughts and a million emotions running through her and her eyes filled with tears, the little blonde thief blindly made her way out of the studio. Not caring who she pushed or bumped into, she just pressed on, her only goal, to get out as fast as possible.

She knew her team needed her, but there was no way she could do anything for them right now. She might not even be able to come back to help much less, face the guy enough to run game on him.

Vaguely, Parker was aware of almost running into the solid form of the hitter on her way out... Somehow, she didn't know why, maybe it was because they worked together so much, but Parker was almost always aware of Eliot. All.. the.. time. Whenever she was even in the same room, Parker was always aware of exactly where the hitter was and what he was doing or who he was with.

So running out of the studio now, the only person that registered on her radar was the retrieval specialist. She was also aware of the anger rolling off of him in waves that she could almost feel as if they were real... and she knew he was angry with her. In fact, he seemed to be angrier than she'd ever seen him before and Parker knew she'd made the right decision in running out. She also knew that there was very little chance of her ever being able to go back to her family... her team again. They would hate her for what she'd done. They would see her from now on and see only the person who allowed their little brother to get killed.

* * *

><p>Parker knew inside, that she'd somehow caused her brother's death... If only she'd stopped him that day, if only she'd been a little more careful, a little more responsible... P- her brother might still be there. And she herself might be a very different person. But she hadn't... And her little brother had died that day out on the street. That had been the start of the rest of her life. After P- her brother had died, her mom had lost the will to live on. She'd already been a fairly sick person and now, she just lost all her motivation for living. Weeks later, Parker's mom had also died, leaving behind a dad who took out his sorrows by drowning himself in alcohol.<p>

The neighbors had later found scars and bruises on the six year old girl's body and called in Child Services, thinking they were doing the right thing. But that had been the start of the most miserable part of Parker's life. What had been a sunny, happy little six year old, who was completely secure in her family's fold, had become a quiet, non-communicative little girl who wouldn't share anything or even sit near anyone else.

After preliminary checks visits to the psychiatrist, they'd been unable to get her to talk, save saying a single name... Parker. She wouldn't respond to anything other than that. Though it hadn't been her name according to records, the people at the Orphanage had started referring to her by that name so that she would at least respond to their summons.

It had been a very slow process of trying to get her to talk and even when the doctors succeeded, she wouldn't say anything about her past or respond to any name other than Parker... not even her real name. After being written off as another sad, but the kind of case where nothing really could be done, she became another victim of the system.

Parker was sent to one foster home after another, each time the foster parents taking one look at her and seeing only a pretty little blonde child who looked like she wouldn't create any trouble for the world. But each time, after a maximum of two months, they would either send her back to the orphanage without any prior notice or they would drop her off there saying she was probably the most troublesome child ever.

Then came the physical abuse... When Parker grew older, still being passed off to various foster homes, her looks and innocence got her noticed for all the wrong reasons. Nobody had told her till now that that kind of attention from men who professed to be her foster dads and demanded it as their right, was totally and utterly wrong and should never be done. She didn't know it and so she thought that this was what everyone went through. Though she hated every bit of it, she learned to never complain. She'd refused in the beginning and still had memories of broken bones and bruises to show for her refusals.

Only after she ran away from her last foster home at the age of 14, after being brutally beaten up for trying to save one of the other newer foster girls who hadn't liked the way their foster dad was behaving with her, that Parker learnt that it wasn't the way all dads behaved with their children. Fortunately, she'd been found by Archie, when tired and hungry, she'd tried to pick his pocket for some money to buy food.

Parker had become very good at lifting things when no one noticed. It was a product of being in the system for so long and not being treated properly for years. She'd learned to take what she needed when she wasn't given it. Then, she'd needed money and picked Archie Leach's pocket. That had been another turning point in her life... a good one this time.

Archie had taken her in and taught her how to do a lot of exciting things. And she'd been very, very good at them. It made Parker happy to make Archie proud of her and strove to always do her best for him. But that had lasted only three short years. Archie, who'd left his family... his real family because he was a thief and the police had been after him, went back to them. In the process, leaving Parker alone once again.

She'd learned to fend for herself... She'd known even then that there was no way Archie would ever take her with him to his family, but she'd never thought that he would just drop everything like this and run back to them at the first opportunity, leaving her to take care of herself.

After that, she'd worked with different crews and taught herself even more things for the next three or four years. When she'd been 21 years old, Parker got her first big job. She'd been contracted to get it done with one more thief, but when he had bailed at the last moment, she'd gone ahead and done it herself... And come under investigation by the great Nathan Ford.

After that, life as she knew it was amazing. She'd taken one job after another, pulling off seemingly impossible heists, always staying a couple of steps ahead of the Law as well as Nathan Ford and having a lot of fun doing it. By now, Parker's life was defined by a small, finite set of rules. Get the merchandise, get out and stay one step ahead all the time. In the process, she began to lead a life that was completely devoid of any social contact, other than what was needed to get her into the place which she was planning to rob or the occasional one night stand... which she left right after, not even staying to exchange names.

* * *

><p>She'd been happily and extremely successfully doing this for almost half a dozen years when she was contacted by a Victor Dubenich for a job. At first, Parker'd thought about not taking it... it involved too many people in the team and more people meant smaller cuts of the money and bigger risks. But then she saw who exactly she'd be working with and her curiosity kindled, she'd agreed. She'd never actually seen Nathan Ford when he'd been chasing her all those years ago and now she was gonna get a chance to work with him. It was an exciting thought. So she'd taken the job and everything else, as they say, was history.<p>

They'd found out they'd been duped by Dubenich and they'd gotten back at him, making lots and lots of money in the process. The team had gotten together, albeit a little reluctantly on some of their cases, and that's how the Leverage team had come into being. Of course, Parker had had a lot of trouble adjusting to working with others, taking orders as well as the huge concept of giving away money. She would never have agreed to it had it not been for the second job.

The feeling she got when they gave away all that beautiful money to the hospital... when all those injured soldiers and the doctor thanked them for it, Parker had never felt like that before. She felt warm and fuzzy... her stomach was feeling funny, as if she was very full when she hadn't eaten in a long time, her eyes were watering up... she wasn't crying. Parker never cried... it must be some dust or something and she felt like hugging somebody, which, for Parker was so different and panic inducing because she usually hated any sort of physical contact.

Over the next years, the team had become the most normal part of her weird life. They had almost started to feel like what a real family should... the way Sophie had told her a real family was. Nate had always been their rock, their man with the plan... the guy who got them into... and out of every piece of trouble, all for their clients. Sophie was right next to him all the way. Of course the two of them had their problems, their histories and their own weird habits, but if Nathan Ford and Sophie Devereaux got together, you didn't want to be standing against them.

Parker knew from the very beginning that Nate and Sophie would always care for her. That was why it had hurt her so much when Nate started drinking and Sophie left. But everything was alright later and Parker was happy once again.

Hardison was like the fun to annoy and irritating friend or cousin... something Parker had never had before. She'd never connected with another person that way before the hacker had come into her life. The hacker had pretty much the same kind of past as hers with some big differences. He'd found one of the good foster homes and had spent the rest of his life there, with his foster mom, whom he called Nana. Nana had probably changed Hardison into what he was today.

Of course he was a criminal like all of them, but he had values and rules which he never stepped beyond, never compromised on. He was also the first one to put the idea of the team being almost like a family, inside Parker's head, and for that alone, she was very very thankful to him. If Hardison hadn't put the idea in her head, she wouldn't have talked to Sophie about it and if she hadn't talked to Sophie, she never would've found what normal families were really like.

Nate, Sophie and Hardison formed her family, but Eliot was the one who really made her feel like she actually belonged there... with them. The hitter was one of the strongest, yet gentlest people she knew. He was also one of the most emotionally perceptive people she'd met. Nate and Sophie might teach her things, Hardison might think he understood her, but Eliot was usually the one who knew her.

Whatever Hardison said about knowing about her and her early life, he couldn't understand the way she thought, the way she worked and why she reacted to things in a certain way. And Eliot did. It was as simple as that. She knew Eliot understood her and she had never tried to find out how it was that he read all of them so well as to know exactly what they needed when.

For example, if anyone in the team was upset, Eliot was the one they turned to invariably... and he made it all better... everytime. If Nate was in a funk, he got the mastermind to play a couple of games of chess and talk it out. If it was Sophie, a pretty present, some flowers and a cup of her favorite herbal tea helped... Hardison's funk could usually be driven away by letting the hacker teach him something or having the younger man play some computer game with him and allow the hacker to beat him.

As for Parker, he always had just the right thing. Whether it was cereal when she was just bored and hungry or pancakes when she was down, cookies for when she was really sad or something nice and shiny when she was really, really sad. But Eliot always knew what it was that would cheer her up and conversely, for when Parker was really keyed up with nothing to do, like the day Hardison had mistakenly given her two little bottles of that yummy Starbucks coffee and she'd almost gone off her head on a sugar rush, Eliot had known exactly what to do to calm her down.

The four of them... they were her family. Nate and Sophie were the dad and mom, Hardison, the annoying but adorable younger brother and Eliot... well, she wasn't really sure how Eliot fit into that. None of the familial descriptions ever seemed to fit him in her mind. He wasn't like a brother... or cousin or anything else.

The connection she felt with Eliot Spencer went deeper than that. What it was exactly she wasn't sure, but Parker knew that if she had to, she would say that Eliot was the one she was closest to in her family. The one she felt safest with and the one she knew would find her if she was in trouble and make sure she was alright... anytime and everytime. Even though she couldn't quite give a name to their relationship, he was definitely one of the most important members of her little family.

A family she was almost sure she didn't have anymore. They would all hate her by now, when they came to know what she'd done. I mean, she'd let her own younger brother get killed right in front of her and she'd done nothing to stop it from happening. Plus, there was also all the times she'd said and done things that she didn't even want to think about... She'd blown up the house of one of her foster parents, she'd turned two of them in to the police. She was unstable... there was something wrong with her, like Eliot always liked to say.

She had no idea why the team had let her stay for such a long time with them even after knowing some of what she'd done in her life, but now, she knew that knowing what they did now about her, they would never want to see her again. And so she ran. She had no idea where she was running to, only knew what she was running away from... the looks of disgust, suspicion and anger in the eyes of the people who were her teammates, her family.

The thought of seeing those emotions in Nate, Sophie and Hardison's eyes hurt... a lot, but the thought of Eliot being disgusted with her actions almost killed her... physically hurt her enough to stumble to a stop, which allowed whoever was behind her, to get a hold of her.

Two strong arms wrapped around the struggling thief's waist and lifted her off the ground in an effort to stop her from getting away. In her grief at having to leave the team and the agony brought out by the psychic's reading of her past, Parker failed to notice that the arms were holding her gently and protectively and the hold was a very familiar one.

* * *

><p>Eliot Spencer was, in one word... rather one sentence, the best retrieval specialist in the world. He could bring back almost anything that you wanted from anywhere in the world. He was also one of the most sought after hitters... he could take down half an army with just his bare hands and a toothbrush... he'd actually done it.<p>

In the world of crime, Eliot Spencer was a name. A name that criminals feared, but just that... a name, because if Eliot Spencer was after you, you wouldn't stay alive to tell the story. He was a specter who came, got what he wanted and left you in a position with nothing to say... or in a position where you couldn't even speak.

But that was before he left the services of Damien Moreau. Working for the businessman who dealt in death took too much out of the hitter and he'd cut and run while he still could. After that, he'd gotten a call that changed his life. A call from a man named Victor Dubenich.

The first time he saw their faces he knew this crew was going to be trouble. The hacker was too talkative for his own good and too over confident for theirs. Nathan Ford, though a very respected name in the criminal world, looked like he was two steps away from being a full blown alcoholic. That left Parker... the thief. She was... He didn't know what she was or if she was even human. There was something surely wrong with her and he left it at that.

Though he didn't want to work with such an unstable crew, the payoff was good and he was... curious. The mind of the great Nathan Ford put to work on the other side of the law... that itself was worth a ring side seat. The first part of the plan went off without a hitch... but they'd found that they were cheated out of their cut, so they decided to run game on their client... who now became the mark.

Then Ford had brought in the actress whose unspeakably bad performance left him sure that the man was lunatic. But the next day, she'd transformed... completely. In one of the most beautifully choreographed acts he'd seen till date, they'd not only managed to get their job done, get the mark to implicate himself, but also made a boatload of money in the process. Not kidding... a real boatload. With some of the money Eliot bought out a farmhouse just outside the city so that he could have a real home base for when he needed to get away.

* * *

><p>From the beginning, Eliot had known that this crew was trouble... and trouble they'd been. The four of them had somehow managed to weasel their way into his heart and now he had no idea how he could function if he wasn't needed by the team anymore. Somewhere along the way, his job had started to define him. He was the protector now... both on and off the job.<p>

This team wasn't like any other he'd ever worked with. He couldn't just turn off his protective instincts when he was not on the job and trust them to take care of themselves... especially Parker. Keeping an eye on the thief was by itself a full-time job. But, they had become too important in his life for him to lose because he hadn't been careful enough. He would give his life for each and every one of them and he knew that they would also move heaven and earth to get him back if something happened to him. That level of trust in this sort of a business wasn't just rare... it was impossible.

Of course, there had been certain times when he'd almost cut and run again. The time when Nate almost drank them into the grave was just one of those times. Eliot's irritation wasn't with the drinking problem... though he didn't feel very good about it. His problem with Nate at that point had been the man's apparent obliviousness with what he was putting his team through. He had been the man who always got them out of any and all the trouble they got into but if you couldn't trust him to have a plan now, who could you trust?

After that Sophie had left... She had been leaving only Nate, but the other three had gotten stuck in the cross fire between the two older members of the team. Eliot hated the fact that the grifter had won his trust and thrown it away like it was useless. He knew that she hadn't meant to... that her feelings for Nate had blinded her to all other problems, but he couldn't really find it in himself to forgive her that.

Enter Tara Cole... another grifter who Sophie had sent in her absence. Though he hadn't forgiven Sophie, there was no way he was welcoming anyone else into the team with open arms, especially someone who tricked them right from their first meeting. But this woman was not only a great actress, she was strong, smart and very very practical. There was no way you couldn't start respecting her for that alone... and Eliot did.

She wasn't his type and he definitely didn't get involved emotionally with anyone he worked with, but he almost admired the blonde grifter for her personality and ability to adapt to any situation. But of course, grifters were all like that. It was their main talent to make you like and trust them. The fact that she hadn't tried to make them either trust or like her made it a point in her favor in Eliot's mind.

He admired her, but that didn't mean he trusted her... and he knew that Parker and Hardison also didn't yet. None of them were quite ready to replace Sophie with Tara in their minds, lives or even at work. But all that took a back seat now. Now, Parker was his first and maybe only priority.

* * *

><p>Eliot had been doing his routine job in the team this time. They were going after this sleazy fake psychic and Eliot had taken security detail. And for that he needed to infiltrate the studio from a different angle. So he'd been standing by the cameras, getting a good view of the proceedings while Parker and Nate sat themselves in the chairs as part of the audience. He'd seen and heard Nate bait the psychic by talking about a gecko but things started going south from the moment the mark hit on Parker as a potential victim.<p>

He'd seen a weakness in her and started capitalizing on it, asking leading questions and making guesses that made the little thief more and more uncomfortable. Eliot had never seen Parker cry. She just wasn't that type... even when she was hurt pretty badly, she managed to hold off the tears, at least until she was alone. In the two years he'd known Parker, she never cried in front of them but now, this sleazeball had made her cry in just a few minutes. He didn't know it yet, but Dalton Rand had just signed his own death warrant.

Even as they all just sat there and looked, Parker ran off the sets, literally brushing past him and his attempts to stop her. By the time she crossed him, Eliot was pretty sure she couldn't even see properly for the tears in her eyes. She'd been shaking with the emotions roiling inside her and the hitter knew... that they had very little time to go after her and find her or they would lose her... forever.

He didn't know how he knew it, not that he was complaining, but he just did... most of the times, he got what Parker was all about. There was a whole lot of crazy involved, most of it was madness, but there was always a method to her madness. Over the last year when they'd been paired a number of times during cons, they'd developed a much better understanding of each other and by that Eliot knew now that if he let Parker out of his sight now, with the way she was thinking right now, she would run. And when Parker ran, even the world's best minds couldn't find her unless she wanted them to.

He was dimly aware of Nate getting up to follow her out of the studio and he spoke into his comm

"It's okay... I've got it. You stay here and get a handle on things Nate..."

He was unspeakably relieved when he saw the mastermind nod. He wasn't sure why he wanted to be the one to take care of this... to take care of Parker, he just did and didn't choose to question it at that moment. Turning on his heel, he ran out the building in the direction he'd seen the petite blonde go and found her already at the edge of the lot and looking as if she wasn't planning to come back any time soon.

Putting on some more pace, he was rewarded by getting closer to his target, when he saw her stumble and almost stop some thirty yards in front. This was his chance... he had to get a hold of her or he might never see her again. That thought running through his head gave him extra impetus and he was behind her in seconds, putting his hands out to keep her from falling as she stumbled once more.

This time, he didn't think about it. In a duplication of the move he'd pulled on her in the hospital during one of their earlier cases when they conned a construction company, Eliot carefully but firmly wrapped his arms around the thief's slim waist and pulled her off the ground, holding her to his body, her back to his front. It was a slightly uncomfortable position, especially if you had a wriggly thief in your hands, but he managed to hold on to her despite her repeated tries to get rid of him.

He was sure that somehow, Parker wasn't aware of what she was doing or even where she was headed. He knew the feeling of being completely disoriented and helpless when you were struck on the blind side with a blow that sent you reeling when you least expected it. He'd felt it... more times physically than psychologically, nevertheless he knew what she was going through at the moment.

As her attempts to get away intensified, the hitter did the only thing he could. He tightened his hold on her slightly and stretching up a bit, spoke softly into her ear, trying to get through the fog of her emotions.

"Parker darlin'... stop fighting me. It's Eliot... you're safe here. No one can hurt you now. I'll keep you safe... stop fighting me honey..."

Over the next few seconds he kept repeating his name and the fact that she was safe and eventually, he felt himself getting through to her as she stopped struggling and relaxed a bit. As soon as she started to relax, Eliot returned the little thief to the ground and slackened his hold on her. The second she was free, Parker turned around in a lightning move and she was latched on to him like a limpet in a flash.

She was like a scared animal or a small child with the way she was clutching on to him, her whole body shaking with tremors as she sobbed into his shirt front. Slowly and gently, Eliot wrapped his arms around her again, holding her to his warmth in a comforting embrace as he let her cry it out. Gently, he took out her comm and spoke into his to inform the team of his immediate plans so that they wouldn't worry too much

"It's okay guys... She's with me. I got her... I am gonna get her home and make sure she'd alright. Don't worry about us... you guys wrap up here and when you get back to the office we can figure out how to take this son of a b**** down... okay? Nate?"

At receiving their murmured affirmatives, he removed both of their ear buds and put them into his pocket, saving them for later as he was sure Parker wouldn't want the others to hear her like this.

* * *

><p>Years of suppressed emotions were pouring out at that moment and even though Eliot knew that this was probably good for her, it hurt him inside to see her cry this much... to see her hurt this way. Physical injuries, he dealt with everyday... it was the deep seated emotional scars he didn't know how to deal with. That he didn't know how to protect her from... So he settled for simply holding her tighter and rubbing his hand up and down her back in a soothing manner while murmuring softly and comfortingly in her ears and letting her cry it all out.<p>

It was long minutes later that her sobs quietened down to quiet sniffles and occasional whimpers and she slowly lifted her head to look at him. Even crying and completely unconscious of the way she looked, she was still probably the most beautiful thing he'd ever laid his eyes on. Eyes swollen, nose red and hair sticking up weirdly, Parker was still very, very beautiful in his eyes. If he wasn't so conscious of his thoughts and the direction they were going on, he might not have been able to stop himself from leaning in and kissing her soft, trembling mouth.

But he did... that was not what she needed right now. Parker needed a friend now more than anything or anybody else and he was going to be that friend. He could explore his newly awakened feelings for the little thief later... when she wasn't so emotionally susceptible. There was no way he was going to take advantage of her emotional instability now... he just wasn't that type of a guy. This internal reverie, was however broken when he heard Parker speak in a low, hoarse voice

"Why?"

"Why what darlin'?"

"Why're you here?... Why did you come after me?"

"Why?... darlin' that sleazeball in there made you cry... you ran out of the studio in tears... did you expect me to just stand by and let you go?"

"B-But you know now... you guys k-know what happened, then why?"

"Slow down Parker... what do you mean I know it now... what do I know?"

Her voice, which had been slightly hesitant and unsure till now became a very, very quiet whisper... Eliot had to lean in quite a bit before he could listen and in that, he'd lost half of what she was saying

"... me that my brother died that day"

"What?... Can you say that again Parker?... I am sorry I couldn't hear all of it..."

With a considerable effort, the thief said those words again, this time slightly, only slightly louder... but it was enough for him to hear her clearly. And he wished he hadn't...

"You know that it was because of me that P- my brother died that day..."

Listening to the agonized confession and seeing her in this condition tore something out of his heart. Eliot's brain was processing things at lightning speed but he was still too flabbergasted by her words to react in time. The fact that he didn't say anything immediately, was almost as good as telling Parker that what she'd confessed was true... that he believed what she said. Parker was already stiffening in his hold when Eliot found his tongue

"WHAT?"

Both of them flinched at the sheer volume of that single word

"Sorry darlin'... Didn't mean to shout but... What was that huh? How could you think that you caused your brother's death?... That's not correct Parker. It was an accident. There was nothing you could've done."

"You heard what he said in there... I was the one who taught P- my brother to ride that bicycle... if I hadn't he wouldn't have gone out on the road that day... he might not 've gotten h-hit... and he m-might... still b-be alive. It's all my fault"

Parker's voice became more and more unsteady as she progressed to the end of the statement. By the last phrase, her voice had gone down to an agonized whisper once again and she looked to be in the imminent danger of breaking down once more.

Eliot needed more time... and a more comfortable place if he was going to try and make this alright. He needed to get them out of here... there was no way calming her down enough for her to listen to him was happening in a dark corner of a parking lot just seconds away from the studio she'd run out of in tears.

That decided, Eliot looked around to find his truck parked some spaces over and hauling the little thief along, made his way to the automobile. Parker was curiously complaint and made her way to the car without a word. Getting into the car, the hitter decided that his place would be the best bet for this showdown. They needed a place where both of them were comfortable and Parker had visited him enough times for her to not feel threatened by the location.

* * *

><p>The whole fifteen minute drive was accomplished in near silence, which would've been a feat worthy of the record books considering the small blonde could hardly ever keep her mouth shut or stop wriggling around in the seat. This time however, she just sat in the passenger seat, her head down, letting out an occasional sniffle, as if she was waiting for him to chew her out. Eliot was surprised for once, at the way her brain had worked on this one and still needed to wrap his mind around the fact that she thought she was the reason her brother had died.<p>

Ten minutes later, both the thief and the hitter were comfortably seated on his overstuffed couch, each with a cup of Eliot's and now Parker's favorite blend of herbal tea. The time, the place and the tea had all served to calm her down and Parker was past the crying stage. While she still looked very morose, she was definietly past the breakdown stage, having had time to control herself and her rampant emotions.

"Now Parker... are you ready to talk about this?..."

At her hesitant nod, he continued

"Will... Will you tell me what happened that day?"

"Well... It was the first week of summer holidays... P- my brother was two years younger than I was and both of us were playing in the front lawn. He'd just gotten a mini bicycle for his birthday that month and he'd begged and begged me to teach him to ride it. That was the day he finally started riding it properly... you know... I'd just told d-dad that we could take off the training wheels off of it..."

She stopped for a moment to gather herself and Eliot extended a hand toward hers. picking up one of her slim hands, he intertwined her fingers with his and squeezed lightly, silently giving her the support and strength she seemed to need to continue.

"I was playing catch with the neighbor's kid... he was the same age as me and I was so involved in the game that I failed to notice that my b-brother was riding the bike out onto the road. I'd told him time and again not to go onto the road like the big kids used to and he'd listened to me till then. But once my back was turned, he rode out on the road and was hit by a passing truck..."

"All I remember is hearing him squeal in joy at being able to ride his bike without me harping on about riding safely and then... there was the screech of brakes and... and- that's all I remember. I was just standing there... unable to do anything, not able to scream, cry or do anything..."

Parker was silent for a whole minute, still reliving those horrible moments... her eyes, which were usually a soft, dove grey were stormy and dull now. Clouded with tears and sorrow, the sparkle in them that defined the spirit of Parker was completely missing. Somehow, it seemed to hurt Eliot even more than before and he vowed that he would take it upon himself to make sure that nothing ever hurt Parker again.

"Anyways... that's what happened. Now tell me... tell me that it wasn't my fault..."

"What happened that day wasn't your fault Parker... Tell me this... how old were you then?"

"Six..."

"Jesus Parker!... You were six! I don't think anyone could've done anything at that point. You did everything you could to teach your li'l brother about safety... you didn't cause the accident."

As she vigorously shook her head 'no', Eliot persisted, knowing that this was the only time she might be open enough to let him get through to her

"Look... You didn't encourage him to ride his bike on the road nor did you drive that truck that hit him... You didn't do anything to cause the accident Parker... You had nothing to do with it. Listen to me Parker... You did not cause your little brother's death..."

On a hunch, he continued that sentence

"No matter what anybody said at that time..."

That got the reaction he was looking for. She raised stunned eyes quick as a flash up to meet his. The quiet strength and the confidence in her innocence she saw inside them got to her quicker and better than the words he was saying.

"Do you trust me Parker?"

"Y-Yes... more than anyone else"

The pleasure he felt at those words were saved for later, when he could take the time to savor the amount of trust she'd put in him... but he let out a small, sparkling smile that had the thief smiling a little in return, in spite of her tears

"Then believe me when I say this... I know that you didn't do anything to cause your brother's accident baby... I believe in you and I always will. You are one of the most generous and kindhearted people I know and I want to help you get through this... I promise you, Rand will pay for what he did today and we will take him down... okay?"

The fact that she had caused her brother's death had been established so firmly in her mind that she'd assumed that to be the truth for so many years. Even though her brain had told her that she had almost nothing to do with the accident, she hadn't been able to bring herself to really believe that and put away the burden of guilt she'd carried for so long. But now, with the quiet strength and unstinting support of Eliot beside her, she was almost ready to believe.

"B-But why did he say that then?... he said that I'd ruined everyone's life..."

Her voice was small and unsure again. Eliot fervently hoped that whoever had said those cruel, unthinking words to the little girl was already dead because if not, Eliot would have no problems paying him a visit and killing him... slowly and painfully.

"Who said that Parker?"

The hitter fought to keep his voice soft and gentle in the face of his growing anger against the man who'd treated his little thief so cruelly when she was just an innocent little girl

"It was... Uncle Rob... dad's friend... It was at her funeral. Two weeks after P- my brother's. He'd come down to help dad with the arrangements and he told me after the service that it would be way better for everyone if I just disappeared... that I was nothing but a pain and I'd already runined everyone's life. He said I'd killed m-my b-broth-er and mommy and that I should just go away before I killed everyone else too..."

Without his knowledge, Eliot's hold on Parker's hand tightened painfully as he fought the boiling anger and rage that her words had kindled inside him.

"You're angry..."

"Yes Parker... I am angry. But not at you. Never at you darlin'... okay? You should remember that. No matter what you do or say, I am never going to get angry with you. I might growl or shout at you a bit at times, but I will always be here for you when you need me. Will you remember that?"

"Yes... Thank you Eliot. I know I can trust you... will you tell me why you are angry?"

"I am just angry at how someone could be so stupid as to tell such hurtful lies to a small child, that too at their mother's funeral..."

"Y-You think he was lying?"

"Of course he was lying Parker... You weren't responsible in any way for the deaths of your mother and brother... It was all just a big lie to hurt you and make you run away..."

"Why would he do that?"

"I don't know baby... I don't know. But there's one thing... If that guy is alive now, I am gonna pay a little visit to him and make him wish he'd never been born... Come 'ere"

Using the hand he held in his to pull her closer to him, Eliot wrapped both his arms around her and held her close in a warm, comforting hug. Parker had to manouvre a bit till she was almost sitting on Eliot's lap, but he didn't seem to be minding it in the least... in fact, the hitter just pulled her closer, getting her to sit fully across his lap, his strong arms enclosing her in a cocoon of warmth and security as she snuggled into him.

"I am sorry for what you've had to go through Parker... but I promise you. I will protect you from now on. I will make sure nothing... nothing ever hurts you again Parker... I will always be there when you need me. I will always come and get you if you are in trouble... I will always be there to save you baby"

Parker pressed a soft kiss into his throat as she snuggled further into his warmth and murmured

"Mmm... Thank you Eliot... I know you will always be there. I trust you"

She turned her head just slightly to look up at him just as he turned his down to look at her. The two of them ended up staring into each other's eyes, sparking blue clashing with soft dove grey. Eliot sighed softly at what he saw in hers and let his head fall forward a bit, allowing himself to do the thing that he'd stopped himself from doing at least half a dozen times previously.

Both their eyes closed simultaneously as the hitter's hand came up to cup her cheek and stroke a thumb across it in a gentle caress and he lowered his lips to meet hers. The soft, pink set of lips that had tempted him for so long were finally on his and nothing else mattered. The first kiss was a soft, tentative brush of his lips against hers. Eliot had no idea how she would react... he thought he'd seen something in her eyes then, but this was Parker they were talking about... he could've easily assumed something wrong.

But as he started to pull back, he found Parker's hand twined into his hair and she pulled his head back to hers. This time, it was a full blown kiss, nothing tentative or first time about it. This was a kiss between two passionate individuals who'd been running away from their feelings for too long. The passion that had been banked and carefully controlled till then was let loose and came out in an explosion of sensations, feelings and emotions.

The one kiss had evolved into a proper make out session on his couch and though Eliot was very, very happy about the direction this was going in, he felt the need to apply the metaphorical brakes on it... for now. He was sure Parker was in an emotionally distraught state and he loved her too much to take advantage of her like that.

Okay... What? Since when had Eliot Spencer started talking about love?... apparently this little blonde brought it out in him. So... he was falling in love with her and he had no idea how or when to broach the topic. As it was, Eliot pulled away gently, not letting his internal disquiet at the steady number of revelations today show on his face. It felt right, when Parker snuggled back into the crook of his neck and tightened her arms around his shoulder and waist.

Feeling the need to bring this moment back to normalcy so that he wouldn't blurt out something that might drive her away, Eliot cleared his throat slightly and said

"So... you want me to?"

"I want you to what?"

Normal, if slightly crazy but totally adorable Parker was back... and that was very good news.

"Well... Do you want me to pay Uncle Rob a visit?"

The blinding smile she gave him slipped straight into his heart, reaching into its depths and twining itself around his very core, making him feel as if he'd been drenched in sunlight.

"No... not now at least. Now, we have a job to do. A fake psychic to get rid of..."

So saying, the thief rolled off of his lap and jumping up, pulled the hitter off the couch and into standing position next to her.

"Come on... Nate, Tara and Hardison will be waiting for us... let's go"

* * *

><p>The rest of the day had gone well... They'd met up with the rest of the team at Nate's loft and Nate and Tara had used the video footage from the studio to show Parker exactly how Rand had read her silent gestures as answers for his questions. Parker'd taken it quite well considering the fact that she'd been crying her eyes out an hour ago. When she'd said that she wanted to rip his arms off, then his head off and kill him, Eliot had offered to pay him a visit and been rewarded with another little secret smile of hers that made a place in his heart right next to the one previously residing there.<p>

It made Eliot feel a whole lot better that Parker was slowly but surely putting the studio incident behind her. He'd made it clear to her that he was here for her if she ever wanted to talk about anything and received a short but sweet kiss in return before she assured him that she was better and that she would definitely come to him if she wanted to talk about it.

The next day when Tara had been convincing Rand that she was a real psychic, Parker had again given him a small smile and a wink when they'd been bantering about the electric shocking system that Nate had Hardison rig the table with. Again he'd felt the happiness spreading from his heart all over his body till he was grinning back at her and he discovered he had no problems with it.

That decided it... he had to tell Parker. Maybe after the job was over... After that, he'd had some fun towing away Rand's car, then finding cars and getting their license plate numbers to Hardison so that Tara could spin tales with it... But then, the sleazeball got himself kidnapped and they'd had to change their plans to get him back before they could discredit him in front of the whole country. Then they'd all been busy finding the storage unit, filling it up with some junk and rigging up the explosive panel at the back so that Rand and the thug Kusen, could step right into the studio where they taped Rand's show after he'd confessed to being a fake in front of the camera.

After Rand and Kusen got arrested and the team was standing at the parking lot, watching them being taken away, Eliot couldn't resist placing a soft, quick kiss on Parker's cheek when no one else was looking. The look she gave him in return had love so clearly written all across it that it was all the hitter could do to not confess his feelings for her that instant in front of all of them. He stopped himself with difficulty but couldn't stop the happiness at the turn of events from seeping into his voice as he called the rest of the team to get into the truck so that they could get going.

Yeah... this was going to end... no begin very well. Cuz today was going to be just the beginning of the rest of their lives... and it was all good.

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><p><em><strong>AN: So there it was... Hope everyone liked it... Please don't forget to review your thoughts and ideas**_

_**If you have ideas for prompts, I would love to have more to write with... so please send them in through a review or a PM... **_

_**Feedback of all kinds is always appreciated to the utmost... So, keep reading and reviewing...**_

_**Lotsa luv and fortune cookies**_

_**Macybear**_


	10. The right side up

_**AN: Hi!... Am posting after a gap of some three weeks... forgive me for pulling the disappearing act, i understand that some of you were worried abt me... sorry for making you worry. I am back now and will be posting in fairly regular intervals... maybe not everyday like before but definitely two to three times a week. Looking fwd to getting your feedback.:)**_

_**This fic is dedicated to Hips, who sent in this awesome prompt. Hips, sorry for the delay, but here is one part of your request. The other one is still in the works and will be up soon.**_

**Prompt by Hips**

**An upside down kiss in the rain like in Spiderman**

**_Hope all of you like this one... reviews and feedback are extremely welcome... i live to hear from you :)_  
><strong>

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><p>Okay... This wasn't going to plan. The team had taken the job of cleaning up the coffers of a corrupt loan shark and returning the money to the rightful owners. Only, they hadn't planned on having to raid his penthouse apartment... an apartment that was on the fortieth floor of the most luxurious and secure residential buildings in the city.<p>

There was gonna be absolutely no way in via the front or any of the service doors... Believe me, they'd already tried. The team of ex-marines (Eliot's observation... they had very distinctive stances supposedly) that were responsible for security apparently took their job very seriously and the Leverage Associates team hadn't been able to find even a single loophole in the building's security plans yet.

Beginning of the week, the team had started with Plan A, with Plans B and C as backup... By now, they were hovering at somewhere about Plan K... and she knew that even that had very little chances of working. Parker had been a thief, grifter and even part hacker, part mastermind on this con and nothing had worked so far. Just the fact that Nate, their Obsessive Compulsive but completely fearless leader, was considering someone else's ideas for getting through this con should tell one how much this particular job had gotten to the team.

Parker was frankly getting bored of this job and she was going to do something that was a little... okay maybe a lot crazy very soon. Whether or not they finished the job, Parker just wanted to leave and get back home. Just the thought of going back to Eliot and her toasty warm house and relaxing for the rest of the weekend... maybe taking a small trip to the MoMA... there was the Egyptian history exhibit going on there, was so tempting that without even noticing, Parker wrapped her hand around the hitter's arm and was pulling him towards her.

The team had taken to planning their ineffectual cons from the new and dramatically improved Lucille 4.5. Four previous Lucille's had died (exploded, flattened in a dump, involved in a crash and exploded again) and the point five was for one more that had only had its electronics fried... it hadn't been completely totaled like the other ones so according to Hardison, it didn't deserve a whole number. Also, even after the whole team had threatened him about it, the hacker wouldn't call the van anything but Lucille. Anyways, the whole team was crammed inside the back of the van and her hitter was sitting right next to her, his hard, muscled body a calming as well as energizing presence beside her.

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><p>Eliot and Parker had started dating as part of an epic game of truth or dare that had taken place between the three younger members of the team one drunken night. Hardison had unfortunately taken a video of the hitter accepting a dare to go on a date with Parker and they had had to oblige... though thoroughly unwillingly. To their surprise, the date had gone... quite well, actually much more than quite well... Not that they had expected the two of them to click in that way.<p>

What had started as the result of an impulsive dare had then grown to a series of dates, a couple of sleepovers, a lot of training sessions, some cooking lessons, a few climbing lessons and a whole lot more. They themselves hadn't realized how quickly and how well they'd adapted to this relationship that had blossomed between them. It had been a slightly awkward decision in which they'd decided that they would officially be a couple but telling the team had gone way easier than they'd expected.

The only reaction they'd received from Nate and Sophie was to say 'It's about time!' and Hardison had been insufferably smug about him being te reason for the two of them getting together. That aside, almost nothing changed when it came to work and the office. Eliot was still the same gruff, laconic hitter and Parker was still the slightly... okay a lot crazy and keyed up thief. They were only different when they were around each other and even that, wasn't by a great margin.

The two of them had always enjoyed having lengthy and involved arguments about anything and everything under the sun... it was almost like some sort of flirting for them. (Hardison called it 'flirt-fighting'... he'd even attempted to patent the term) They still argued volubly, only their way of making up was different. Before, Eliot would cook something that was Parker's favorite as a way of apologizing and Parker usually ended up giving him something precious that she'd stolen specifically for him. Now, they still did the cooking and stealing bits, only with a lot more 'non-verbal communication'... kisses, lotsa kisses.

The only problem that the rest of the team actually had with Eliot and Parker's relationship was the fact that the two of them had no sense of time or place when it came to expressing their feelings to each other. The thief and hitter had no qualms with public displays of affection and regularly treated the rest of them to such lengthy displays that either invoked catcalls or yells of irritation.

Nate chose to ignore most of their displays and wouldn't comment on them unless such an event happened to occur when he was demanding their attention. Sophie on the other hand was openly happy for them and 'awww'ed almost everytime she saw them hug or kiss.

But Hardison... the hacker had been the most fun to irritate with their constant PDA's. He had liked it in the beginning, catcalling at them for the first week or so. Then, it had started growing irritating for the young man as whenever he turned to talk to either of them, they were either not in the room or involved in a kissing contest right next to him. Hardison's shouts of frustration only elicited smirks from the thief and the hitter as they loved to tease their younger team mate.

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><p>Pulling the hitter closer to her, Parker leaned her head against his shoulder as Nate explained their new plan... Plan L or maybe N... She'd zoned out for a minute there so she wasn't sure... Plan M was always skipped in their briefings cuz Hardison went all weird if anybody so much as mentioned the letter M. Eliot absently took her hand clutching at his arm and brought it down to link his fingers with hers... his thumb stroking the skin on the back of her palm. The small gesture calmed the jumpy thief and she sat still once more, able to pay attention to what the mastermind was saying.<p>

That little conference inside the van, led to where they were right now. Parker was on the roof of the building, having used an undercover identity they'd established earlier for her. It didn't give her access to anything more than the front door and the elevators of the building. Anything else required higher levels of clearance than hers and this was all Hardison could manage to spoof in time for their first plans.

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><p>Eliot, after a long time, was totally pissed. He was so angry that anything he said at that point of time sounded like the growling of a really angry bear. He understood that Nate was the brains of their operation... he was the man with the plan. But this plan was scaring the hell out of him and his fear for Parker's safety came out in the form of pointless anger and frustration. He'd almost punched Nate in the face for even suggesting such a plan in the first place but had been stopped cold by his girlfriend jumping up and agreeing to it.<p>

Parker... the craziest woman and the most beautiful person he'd ever known... The minute he'd laid eyes on her before their first job as a team, he'd known. He'd known that she would be the death of him... the only thing he didn't know then was how much he'd enjoy the journey till then. Life with Parker was... different, crazy and amazing in a hundred ways. Now that he knew what it was to be with her, Eliot couldn't even think of not having her in his life anymore.

Despite how different they were as people, the two of them had just clicked. Maybe it was because underneath all the craziness on her part and the controlled violence in his, they were pretty much the same. Both had had very bad childhoods, both of them appreciated the effort each required to trust the other as they did, and so made sure they did absolutely nothing to betray the modicum of trust given to them.

And so it was... Eliot was on perimeter and protection detail while Parker took her gear to the roof and took a dive from there to the floor where the mark's home office would be. If all went to plan, they should be able to get the incriminating blue prints and get out within half an hour. So of course, something had to go wrong... Eliot was on full alert for exactly that.

He'd been working with this team of people for too long to underestimate their propensity for chaos. The team seemed to be prime examples for Murphy's laws... all the time. If there was any single facet of their plan that could go wrong, it did. Hence, it was no big surprise when the security system which Hardison had hacked into, reset itself and the exit that they'd readied for Parker was of no use anymore.

His little thief could've made a clean get away had she been by herself... but as it was, she was weighed down by her gear as well as several canisters of the rolled up blueprints. So on her own, she decided to cross over to the next roof and rappel down from there to the ground on the other side.

"Guys... There's a slight change to the plan"

Her pronouncement was greeted with an ominous silence that made Parker huff in frustration.

"Hello...anybody listening?"

"Y-Yes Parker... we heard. I am not quite sure about the change of plans now..."

"I promise you Nate... This one's positively fool proof... Eliot?"

"Come on guys... We gotta roll with the punches. It's not like she's suggesting stabbing another guy with a fork or something right?"

"Eliot!"

"Sorry darlin'... just jokin'... anyways, I think we should let her try this out her way Nate"

At the mastermind's resigned agreement to her plan, Eliot vaulted out of the van and in seconds, was in position. From where he was, Eliot could clearly see his crazy girlfriend scale the gap between the roofs as if it was nothing more than a jump of a foot or two. Even though he knew that she was as good as it got and probably the best in her job in the world, it didn't stop the hitter from tensing every time she attempted something like this... something where there were too many variables and so many things could go wrong.

It couldn't take too much to hurt a slip of a girl like Parker... just the thought of loosing the petite blonde thief now was like a stab to the heart for the hitter and it made him tense up even more.

"Uh oh..."

Barely restraining a frustrated growl from erupting into a full blown snarl, Eliot looked up to just about see the familiar blonde head peeking down from the roof

"What is it Parker?"

"It seems like we're gonna have some company soon... Half a dozen guys heading your way and about the same number heading to the van... I think there are also some guys behind me now. Not too close, but they'll get here soon"

"Make the jump... I'll take care of the rest of it. Hardison?..."

"On it... Will you guys be okay till we drive around and ditch our tails?"

"Fine Hardison... would you just leave before they get to ya?... I can't be in two places at once."

With a string of not so mumbled swear words, the hacker peeled out of the parking lot next to the apartment building and drove out into the city traffic, trying to lose the tails in black SUV's that were already gaining on the van.

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><p>As Parker set up her rig hurriedly, she could feel the dampness in the air and the slight chill... the whole sky was overcast but quiet... not a nice quiet, but the quiet of the calm before a storm. It was as if the whole sky was taking a deep breath before unleashing torrential downpours on the people of the city. It had been barely half a minute since her observation when she felt the first, fat raindrop on her nose. In mere seconds, raindrops as big as miniature jawbreakers were blanketing the rooftop and splattering all around the thief, who was also soaked to the bone.<p>

Over the comms, Parker could hear the sounds of a fight going down on the pavement, forty-one floors below her. Parker was almost disappointed to not be able to watch her boyfriend fight. Watching Eliot fight bad guys was one of Parker's favorite pastimes. The way he moved, with so much innate grace and economy of movement, never taking it easy, never making even a single mistake, it was almost like one of those beautiful choreographed dances for her. Parker had often wondered if Eliot would let her watch him fight in slow motion... maybe now that they were dating, she could ask him to fight the next bad guys they encountered in slo-mo so that she could appreciate it all the more.

As the sounds of the scuffle continued over the comm links, Parker fixed the rigging safely on to a concrete beam on the rooftop and taking a running jump, threw herself off the building. The sensation of flying, of letting herself fall free, the freedom of movement and the complete faith in her own equipment always gave her the biggest adrenalin rush and this time too, was no different. This jump however felt slightly more thrilling with the rain spattering her and everything around.

'So this was what it felt like to be a raindrop...' went through her mind as she felt the central braking system kick in and her descent slow down. Opting to stop herself before she hit the ground, Parker halted her descent when she came within fifteen feet of the ground. Dangling upside down from her line, slightly braced against the smooth glass walls of the building she was rappelling against, Parker could clearly watch her boyfriend and protector make short work of the bunch of bad guys that he'd found.

Looking at the vision Eliot made, fighting in the rain, Parker decided that she would've to ask him if he could do his slo-mo thing in the rain the next time. The falling water droplets were giving the whole thing a completely different dimension and it was safe to say that Parker had never seen anything sexier than this.

Her hitter, dripping wet, all hard muscle, taking on a bunch of bad guys with the rain pouring down on them. Each movement of his sent a string of droplets flying... each slight shake of his head made his wet hair fly in different directions and the water cascading down his body made his baby blue linen work shirt almost see through, giving the slim blonde a hot flush inducing view of the hitter's hard muscled body.

Punching the last of them into oblivion, Eliot turned to find his crazy girl dangling upside down about fifteen feet in the air, watching him intently with that look on her face she got when she was hungry... for him... not his food. Shaking his head at how oddly perfect they seemed to be for each other, the hitter strolled up to the building, waiting for Parker to lower herself to the ground before he could grab her up in a soul-stealing kiss as punishment for taking such a huge risk in rappelling off a building when it was raining.

But as always, Parker trumped his efforts when she stopped her descent about five feet off the ground. Her face was just about the same level as his when she stopped and she pulled Eliot closer by putting her hands behind his head and just pushing him in her direction. Once close enough, Parker leaned down and sealed her mouth on his.

Eliot was completely unprepared for what was happening and it took him a moment to react, but once he'd reconciled himself to the experience of being kissed silly by his girlfriend while she hung upside down from a building, Eliot reacted with all the enthusiasm a man could show.

Always the protector, Eliot put his one hand on the back of her head and pulled Parker even closer while the other hand made sure that she didn't get water up her nose. Though the two of them were quite experienced when it came to matters concerning the physical aspects of relationships, they'd neither of them ever had an upside down kiss.

Their lips had always fit together like they'd been made to kiss each other, but tonight, the experience was on a whole another level. The cold from the unseasonal rain seeping into their bones was getting alleviated by the heat generated by their mouths on each other. The sheer excitement of the fall followed by the hot, open mouthed kisses that they were exchanging was making Parker feel light headed. Eliot on the other hand was feeling the after effects of the heavy make out session and felt the urgent need to find a cold shower, even standing there, drenched in the freezing rainfall.

Slowly, the length and depth of their kisses decreased, to be replaced by softer, sweeter kisses and Eliot gradually pulled his girlfriend down so that she was resting in his arms. Hurriedly shucking her rigging and unhooking herself from the lines, Parker turned to find herself caged between her hitter's arms as he advanced on her, his blue eyes sparking with passion, heat and the hunger of a predator that knew that it was getting it's prey tonight.

Pushing her against the wall, Eliot fitted his body against hers, protecting her from most of the rain and warming her up at the same time as he leaned in for another series of lengthy, heated open mouthed kisses. The adrenalin of the fight and his tension at her risky jump had fueled his reactions during the upside down kisses, but this time, the constant passion that simmered between them, that they carefully kept banked during jobs, was unleashed and let out fully in the open.

Five minutes into the full fledged make out session against the building, his excuse was that he was warming her up and she didn't even think that an excuse was needed to make out with her boyfriend once they'd finished the job, the two of them vaguely heard a chorus of voices shouting in their ears. Reluctantly disengaging from each other, with almost identical disgruntled expressions, the pair turned to trudge towards the grey van waiting for them at the end of the parking lot.

"Here Nate... the blueprints... all of them I could find in the safe and in the room..."

The mastermind accepted the canisters from the thief but refrained from commenting on their behavior, instead settling for a slightly amused, slightly exasperated glance in the hitter's direction as if he was the root of the whole problem, which grated on Eliot

"What?... the job was done... and, she was the one who kissed me first. What was I supposed to do?... Not kiss her back?"

"Hey!..."

"Alright kids... stop fighting in the van. Both of you're completely soaked and I want you to stop the arguments until we get to the lofts and into some dry clothes... okay?"

Both the hitter and the thief glared at the smugly smiling Sophie and settled for grumbled 'yes mom's in retaliation, having fun watching her go all melty at being called 'mom' by them.

The rest of the drive was spent with Eliot and Parker sitting as close as possible in the rear seats, partially to get warmed and partially because they just wanted to be wrapped around each other, Nate and Sophie making a valiant effort at ignoring them and Hardison having a hard time concentrating on his driving because he kept seeing the pair of them kissing in his rear view mirror.

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><p>"What do you think spidey... wanna make that upside down thing a regular part of all your jumps?"<p>

Eliot teased his girlfriend later, when they'd both taken showers, sadly separately, changed into dry clothes and were in bed, almost ready to sleep... Nate had allowed them the concession of having the same bed in his guest room with the understanding that sleeping was all they would do while under his roof. Sometimes Nate and Sophie were more like dad and mom to their dysfunctional little family than even they realized.

"You bet... if that's what's waiting for me when I get back to the ground everytime, I think jumping just became my most favorite thing to do in the world... even better than stealing... or finding a crateful of money..."

The comparisons that she'd just drawn would never have been made in their earlier lives and that gave Eliot the impetus to bend down and press a soft kiss to her forehead, one more to the tip of her nose before pulling back

"Me too babe... me too."

"Love you Eliot..."

Parker murmured before she drifted off, tired from all the tension and adrenalin filled day they'd had. It was the first time Parker had said something like that... Eliot wasn't sure if she knew what she was saying or if she was just mumbling in her sleep, but that didn't do anything to diminish the happiness that was flowering inside his chest. Pulling her closer, he pressed another soft kiss on her lips before settling his arm around her waist and slipped off into slumber himself, his dreams filled with visions of himself, Parker and countless more upside down kisses

"Love you too my little thief... now and always..."

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><p><em><strong>AN: So there it is... Hope you guys liked this one too... <strong>_

_**Hips... hope this was kinda like what you were hopin for when you gave me the prompt... sorry for taking so long to post it. :(**_

_**Reviews and any other kind of feedback is enormously appreciated... so keep reading and reviewing guys.**_

_**Lotsa luv and fortune cookies**_

_**Macybear**_


	11. Take a walk with me into your past

_**AN:Hello... So okay. Here is the next installment in our prompt based fic-verse. This one was a cute prompt by cj95... thank you for giving me such nice ideas. **_

_**I am, however, pretty sure that when you sent in the prompt, this was definitely not what you had in mind. Sorry abt that but this is what my stubborn muse is making me write for this one. :( **_

_**Please review... it makes me keep going. Feedback of any kind is enormously appreciated guys... :)**_

_**cj95 asked for a fic based on a high school reunion. And being the sucker I am for Eliot Spencer, I chose it to be his reunion. I would guess this is his 15 year reunion, which would put him in the area of 32 or 33 years old, Molly around 24 and Parker anywhere between 28 and 30.**_

_**Oh and one more thing... these fics that i am posting are not in the order in which i received the prompts. Sorry for the confusion, but I will try my best to post fics for every prompt that you guys have sent my way. Your patience is very appreciated... :)  
><strong>_

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><p>It was decidedly odd behavior, Parker thought.<p>

They had stepped inside the team's office in proper good humor and had been in the process of getting to their own private offices... the team had just finished pulling off another great con and the satisfaction of a job well done had spilled over into their celebrations, which had lasted till late last night.

So, the team had elected to come to the offices late the next day and here they were. Eliot and Hardison had come by the thief getting off her tiny little electric car... doing her part to keeping the planet green she said, and the three of them had elected to take the stairs up instead of the elevator. Actually, Eliot and Parker had decided to take the stairs and coerced the hacker into walking along with them simply by grabbing both his arms and marching him up to the stairwell.

Hardison, the quintessential front office guy of the team, took it upon himself to give the hitter his rare piece of mail the first thing after they entered the offices and it was thus that Parker was able to see the rare vision that she was seeing now.

Eliot Spencer, the cool, unshakeable hitter, the world's best retrieval specialist and the man who she knew could take down a dozen guys with one hand tied behind his back, was absentmindedly checking the label on the thick, brown paper envelope when she saw his gaze sharpen. It was subtle but there and anybody other than Parker would've missed the slight reaction... even she might've had she not been looking at hm at that moment. Curiosity teased, the thief started paying attention to the hitter as she absentmindedly nodded to whatever Hardison was talking about.

Carefully, the hitter's large, capable hands eased the flap open and out slid a piece of folded paper and another envelope... a thick, cream colored one this time. Parker's senses tingled again as his hands faltered as they reached the embossed envelope. From her position on the desk a few feet away, all the thief could discern was that the envelope had an official looking crest on one side and it looked as if it had been re-routed a couple of times from its original address. But the envelope wasn't what caught the thief's attention. It was the hitter's reaction to the package. He hadn't even opened either the letter or the envelope and the retrieval specialist was already reacting to it.

Slowly and with small deliberate gestures, Eliot eased open the single sheet of folded paper and Parker was slightly surprised to find the writing to be Japanese. She knew that Eliot spoke perfect Japanese and though he didn't know she did too, she was surprised to learn that he knew how to read and write the more difficult form of the language. From where she was, perched on top of the front office desk, she couldn't make out much more than the fact that the letter was written in Kanji and Hiragana and looked like it was written by a woman from the softer and more rounded pen strokes.

She could clearly see his normally healthy, tanned skin pale a bit and his mouth stiffen in a harsh line. His fingers barely hesitated over the envelope for a few seconds before the letter was grouped with the two envelopes and thrown into the rubbish bin. His eyes swung to the rest of them to check if anyone else had noticed but Parker had been ready for that and managed to avert her gaze and look innocently at the hacker who'd been rambling off on some tangent or the other, once more before his sharp gaze landed on her.

That was that and after consigning the rest of it to the garbage, Eliot walked out to the kitchen like always to get started on breakfast, most likely brunch today... seeing as they'd all turned up pretty late. The world's best thief waited for her opportunity... She waited till Hardison wandered into his office, Nate and Sophie walked in in annoyingly good spirits and everyone was well into whatever they'd planned to do for the day.

Parker hadn't become the world's best thief by being impatient. Most times, she'd had to wait days on end to get to her target and she'd never had problems waiting for the best window of opportunity. But this letter... this one envelope was testing her limits. Her impatience reached new levels as the morning wore on and she couldn't get to it without anyone else knowing about it. She also knew that Eliot was almost as paranoid as she was, and might pull the envelope out of the dustbin himself to make sure no one else got their hands on it.

The thought of her target slipping out of her hands had her almost vibrating with agitation and she had to figure a way to calm herself down before Nate or worse, Eliot caught onto her. But the waiting was getting to her and Parker was completely distracted and completely useless for anything the whole morning. Even her daily morning ritual of completing a circuit of the whole of their offices without letting her feet touch the ground even once, by simply jumping from one piece of furniture to another or using the vents, was done in such a distracted and hurried manner that she almost broke a couple of priceless vases that were Sophie's pride and joy.

Finally, it was after lunch that an opportunity presented itself. Eliot was going to be busy cleaning the kitchen and the rest of the team had already retreated to their offices. Checking to see if Eliot had left the room and was out of sight, Parker slowly and stealthily approached the almost overflowing bin and carefully fished out the thick envelope and the accompanying letter that had made the normally cool hitter react that way.

Folding the letter away for later perusal, Parker peered curiously at the cream colored envelope and was surprised again, to find an elaborate crest embossed on one side of it with the words Cedar Hill High written in stylized font underneath it. The envelope was addressed to Eliot James Spencer with a Tennessee address underneath the name. From there, the envelope seemed to have been re-routed to Bosnia, South Africa, Japan and finally to the current offices of Leverage Associates.

High school was something Parker had never been through, not that she really missed the experience if most of the TV or movie portrayals of what a high school was like were anything to go by.. but the way Eliot had reacted to the school's crest on the envelope itself gave Parker the idea that maybe high school wasn't the best idea in the world.

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><p>The blonde thief had been so busy contemplating the mysteries of the educational system that she belatedly realized that she'd dropped her near constant vigil that was almost like a second nature now. No one... no one caught her by surprise, but here they were. She could see a pretty steamed Eliot Spencer standing by her side, his brows furrowed, mouth set in a harsh line, hands folded over his chest and foot tapping impatiently as he waited for an explanation that was sure to be as dramatic as it would be untrue.<p>

Opting to give up even before the battle started, knowing that there was no way she could win this, Parker opted for trite apology and a suitably ashamed expression to go with it. Not that Eliot was thrown by it, even for a second. The hitter raised a single eloquent brow at the utterly damning evidence clutched in the thief's hands

"What!... I'm a thief. I got curious..."

"Damn it Parker!... You're not supposed to read other people's mail."

"You threw it in the bin... after that, you can't claim it as yours. I didn't steal it from you, so you don't really have a leg to stand on in this argument..."

"Oh for god's sake Parker... I knew it.. I knew from the minute I got that damn thing that it was gonna make more trouble for me. Give it back Parker... and the letter too."

With a sullen expression, the blonde extended her hand holding the envelope towards the hitter but at the last second, pulled it back leaving Eliot clutching at air.

"Wait... I'll give it back... but you have to tell me what is so special about this envelope. It was sent to a bunch of different places before someone in Japan sent it here... and it has your full name on it Eliot J-"

"Okay stop right there... you're not saying one word more... not one word Parker, heard me?"

Huffing with frustration at her mute nod, the hitter determinedly pulled the slim blonde after him and headed out the door to the roof. Once there, Parker could see that Eliot was trying his best to control himself from shouting at her or maybe punching something in. Whatever it was, was important enough to the hitter to make him react in such an emotional manner. After a couple of long minutes waiting for him to begin some sort of an explanation and seeing the usually cool hitter struggle to find a possible explanation for his reaction, Parker decided that she'd had it.

"Here... take it. If it is so difficult for you to tell me what it is all about, it's fine... you don't have to say anything. Take it and I won't mention this again. Alright?"

The hitter stared at the blonde standing in front of him, holding out the heavy cream envelope and the single sheet of folded paper along with it. He'd never seen Parker give up on something before, not when she was clearly as curious as she was now. But she was doing this... for his sake and that was what swung it in her favor. She was giving up on finding out about this thing because she could see that it was making him uncomfortable and that made Eliot rethink his reasons for not telling her what it was about.

After another long minute of just staring at her impassively while he worked it all out in his brain, Eliot decided to tell her. By now, Parker was almost squirming under the impassive but intense gaze of the hitter and she'd all but given up on getting an explanation.

"It's from my High School..." came the abrupt pronouncement from Eliot, just when Parker was about to just throw down the piece of paper and envelope she held in her hand and leave the rooftop just to get away from his gaze. As a result, she was ill-prepared for his explanation.

"Huh?"

"The thing you're holding... that envelope is from my high school.."

"Oh..."

Parker didn't know how else to react... there wasn't much she could say and she settled for saying as least as she could till she got to know more

"Yeah... it's... I think it's an invitation... for the reunion."

The last word was uttered as if it was a curse or a swear word, through gritted teeth and Parker could hardly make it out for what it was.

"Reunion?... That's it?"

Even Eliot's death glare had almost no effect on the giggly thief as she danced just out of reach as the hitter moved threateningly in her direction.

"Okay, okay... sorry. I'll stop laughing now... Phew... Okay alright. So, it's your reunion... Why is that a problem?"

When Parker asked the question, she certainly didn't expect the hitter to react in such a way... why he was almost blushing. This was something you didn't get to see everyday... not even every year. Eliot was trying valiantly to ignore his reddening face as he growled out something under his breath about not wanting to go but having to.

"Why? You don't wanna go so don't... What's the big deal?"

Parker wouldn't have thought it possible, but Eliot appeared even more uncomfortable discussing this than the reunion. She was just about to tell him to forget that she'd asked that when he answered... again abruptly, as if the sentence was being pulled out of his mouth without his permission

"It's my sister..."

"Huh?"

"My sister... Molly lives in Cedar Hill... She's the one who sent the invitation and she'll know if I don't attend. I was planning to ignore the whole thing and be done with it but Molly called today morning and literally threatened to come to Boston and drag me down to it if I didn't make it by myself..."

This exceptionally long explanation, for the laconic Eliot atleast, was all said in one breath, as if he was literally forcing the information out. It was all Parker could do to not gape at the man in front of her

"Y-You have a sister?... How come none of us knew about this?... do you have anymore family members secreted away all over the world?... huh?... Come on, answer me..."

"Whoa Parker!... Calm down. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal buster... is that you actually have a family, something most of us don't and you choose to ignore them just so that you can lead a carefree life bashing people's heads in? What kind of a person are you? Wh-"

Eliot managed to shut the ranting thief by simply putting his hand over her mouth.

"Shhh... I am gonna remove my hand right now and I want you to stay quiet... or this is where it all ends. Okay?"

As she nodded slightly, her eyes still mutinous and her mouth set in a sharp line conveying her displeasure at him, Eliot removed his hand and stepped back before answering her barrage of questions.

"Okay... Before I tell you anything else, you gotta promise me... nothing that i say gets past the two of us okay? Nothing... not even to Sophie or Nate and definitely not motor mouth downstairs... deal?"

"Deal."

With a huge sigh, as if it was some major national secret he was revealing to her, Eliot turned and started speaking softly

* * *

><p>"Molly... is my half-sister. My dad was hers too but her mother was my ma's best friend and our neighbor, Patricia Simon... Mrs. Patricia Simon."<p>

Barely reacting to the sharp in drawn breath from Parker behind him, Eliot continued his narrative, his voice curiously flat, as if he was emotionally distancing himself from the story of his own life.

"Well... long story short, mama found out her husband and her best friend were having an affair behind her and Patricia's husband's backs and she went ballistic... literally. There was a huge fight and at the end of it, mama left the house and it was the last I ever saw of her. She left me behind... didn't take me along with her and I still can't figure out why..."

Eliot's voice faltered for a second there and Parker had to stop herself from trying to wrap her arms around the man in front of her and make him feel better. She knew that if she showed any sort of reaction to whatever he was revealing to her, he might stop... it almost seemed as if he wasn't aware of what exactly he was saying and there was no way Parker was doing anything that would make him stop now. From her own experience, the thief knew that Eliot wasn't the kind of person who leaned on anyone else, ever... so the knowledge that he trusted her with so much of his past both humbled and overjoyed the little blonde.

She knew that all of them in the team hadn't had great lives before and that was why they'd become the people they were... but she'd underestimated the power of stupid parents making their children's lives so miserable

"Patricia's husband was in the army and was thankfully killed in action before he came to know of his wife's affair and the result of it. Dad had always had an anger management problem and he went out of control after ma left. He'd mostly take it out on me, but after some time, he started hitting Mrs. Simon too... she was pregnant with Molly at that time..."

There was no way Parker could stop the involuntary cry of pain that left her mouth. Just the thought of a man beating up a woman who was carrying his child was so repugnant, even to Parker, who'd endured much more physical and mental abuse as a child than probably most others could face in their lives.

"H-How old were you?"

"Me?... I was about eight I guess..."

This time, Parker did nothing to stop herself. Turning the hitter around, she wrapped her slim arms around his hard muscled body and pressed herself into his warmth. It was a gesture of a scared child seeking warmth and comfort and there was no way Eliot could find it in himself to step away. With a soft sigh, the hitter proceeded to wrap his own arms loosely around her thin figure, pulling her closer, and resting his chin on her hair, continued with his narrative

"I tried as much as I could to protect Mrs. Simon from dad... but once when she was about eight months pregnant, he beat me up pretty bad and when I was unconscious, he went and beat up Patricia too... It caused her to go into premature labor and when I woke up half an hour later, she was already in pain and bleeding horribly. Dad was no where in sight and a couple of the neighbors and I got Mrs. Simon to the hospital where she died giving birth to Molly... That day was the last time I saw my dad... we heard the next day that the police had found his car wrapped around a tree some half a dozen miles down the road and he'd died on impact"

Parker couldn't have stopped her silent tears of shared pain and remorse at dredging up Eliot's painful past but she tried as much as she could to not draw his attention to the fact that she was crying into his shirtfront.

"We would've been sent off to Child Services but an old lady who lived a couple of houses down, Mrs. Spencer, took us in. Molly and I lived with her till I left home when I was eighteen. Lotsa things happened later... I started working for Moreau... that's when I told Molly to stay away from me as much as possible. Mrs. Spencer and Molly both knew exactly what it was I did and though they weren't happy about it, they never stopped me from doing what it was I needed to do and I'll always be thankful to them for that..."

"Molly stayed with Mrs. Spencer till she passed away about four years ago... after that li'l sis got married to her long time boyfriend... Brian. She and Brian still live in Cedar Hill with their twin kids, Jason and Taylor. She teaches English in junior high and Brian's a doctor at the hospital... they live in and manage a ranch that I bought with some of the payout from my first couple of jobs."

"Oh... that sounds so nice. I am happy for your sister Eliot... Even though her life started in such difficult circumstances, she managed to find her fairytale huh?..."

That soft and unusually perceptive statement from the woman he normally referred to as 'a bundle of crazy' in his head, had Eliot staring down in surprise at her. The fact that she'd been crying when he was so busy delving into his own sob story and he hadn't even noticed, prickled uncomfortably... but didn't hurt as much as the mere sight of tears in the blonde's soft grey eyes. Eliot's brains were so scrambled that he couldn't even begin to process the meaning of whatever he was feeling right now.

"Hey... what's this darlin' ?... tears?..."

"It's nothing Eliot... don't... don't worry about it. So tell me... Why don't you wanna go to your high school reunion? Don't you want to see your family?"

"Of course I do... It's just that I don't wanna go to the reunion... it's... I don't know... I am just uncomfortable about facing the people who knew me so many years ago I guess."

* * *

><p>Eliot found himself getting surprised at the amount of information he was divulging to Parker tonight. He'd never told anyone most of this and now it was as if a dam was broken and everything that had ever held a place inside his brain was pouring out... Damn Parker and her sneaky thieving ways. She'd done some sort weird ass brain trick on him to get him to tell her so much and even if he wanted now, he couldn't take it all back.<p>

But what was surprising was the fact that he didn't really feel the urge to get away or refute anything he'd told her a few minutes ago. In fact, Eliot didn't even feel the need to threaten the little thief into keeping all this to herself. Somehow, he knew that Parker would never betray his trust and that she would protect whatever information he gave her with her life if necessary. Parker was more loyal than anyone else he knew and at no point of time in their work or during their normal lives had Eliot ever felt the need to distrust the crazy but adorable blonde.

"Tell you what... why don't you just go to Cedar Hill, visit your family and stay back for a couple of days. If you still feel like it when the time comes, you could maybe just drop in to your reunion. Who knows?... you might find some of your old friends there."

"Yeah... maybe."

And it was out of his mouth before the hitter even realized what he was saying

"Do you wanna come with me?"

"What?"

The fact that this single word was one octave higher than the blonde's normal voice only gave to explain her apparent surprise at being invited by the usually closed-off hitter.

"Uh... Nothin'. Just forget it... Forget I said anything..."

"N-No... did you just invite me to come along with you to Cedar Hill, to your reunion?"

"Y-Yeah... I guess I did. Figured I could use some company... but it's okay if you don't wanna... in fact I think it's best if I-"

"No wait!... I wanna go along."

"Wh- You sure?"

"Of course... sounds like a lot of fun."

"O-Okay... If you really do want to come..."

"I do. I wanna go with you... I've never taken a vacation before and I wanna go on a trip... it sounds like a fun idea... so... what do ya say?"

It took Eliot a couple of seconds to process the fact that the blonde woman standing in front of him had never taken a vacation before in her life and that she wanted to take her first holiday trip along with him. He, who was a certified workaholic, had himself taken loads of vacations, roadtrips and holidays... for a moment Eliot couldn't even think about not being able to visit Molly, Brian and his niece and nephew atleast once every year during the winter maybe for Christmas or New Year...

The pleading but expectant expression on Parker's face ultimately sealed the deal. This was going to be her first vacation trip and he was going to try his damn best to make it the most memorable trip of her life.

"Okay babe... you and me. We're goin' to Tennessee..."

The decision to take her along proved it's worth right then, when Parker squealed, jumped up and down in excitement like a kid who'd been given their birthday present early and hugged him tight before chattering away about tickets, plans, rigs, ropes and museums near Cedar Hill... Oh yeah... this was going to be one memorable trip, one way or the other.

* * *

><p>It'd been three weeks since that day and Eliot was sitting in his hotel room in Cedar Hill, waiting on Parker. Parker, who he'd found standing at his door with a duffel bag at 4 am for their 9:30 flight, was still as excited as she'd been then... she'd not talked all that much during the flight but completely succeeded in getting on his nerves because she couldn't stop moving. Eliot knew he couldn't have taken it had their seats been in economy. First class had its perks and this was the first time Eliot had appreciated the extent to which it mattered.<p>

He'd called Molly, a little reluctantly sure, but he had to make sure she knew he was bringin' Parker. That phone call had gone well... shyeah right and cows flew. His li'l sister made the Spanish Inquisition look like a freakin' tea party. He'd take torture any day over answering Molly's questions. She'd managed to weasel a lot of stuff about Parker out of him but he'd managed to stand firm on the fact that the two of them would be staying at the Cedar Hill Inn.

Of course, after the reunion, he'd have to attend what was possibly the scariest dinner in the world... one where Molly met Parker. They could hate each other at sight, and he'd be caught in the middle... or, they'd love each other from the beginning and leave him behind while the two of them ran off to run the world. He didn't know which prospect scared him more. He wanted his sister and his... friend to get along. But was that what she was?... Was that all Parker was to him?... That question required some serious thinking and the hitter was almost not ready to delve into the subject for worry of turning up too many hidden emotions and wrecking what was a great working relationship with the blonde thief.

He didn't want to scare of hurt Parker in any way but Eliot was discovering a whole lot of emotions inside him for the thief, most of which one wasn't supposed to feel for someone who was only a friend or a team mate. But it was high time he worked out exactly what it was he felt for Parker because shying away from the topic never did any good and Eliot Spencer wasn't the kind to run and hide dammit. Whatever it was, he'd have to face it head on and find a solution for it.

All this musing was only giving the already antsy hitter a headache and he was just about ready to smash his fist into the wall when the connecting door between their rooms opened with a slight snick, signalling that his date for the evening, was done getting ready. Turning, Eliot had no idea what he'd been expecting, but it had certainly not been this. Parker was clad in a simple but beautiful little black dress... something that didn't belong to Sophie. It was too simple to be her style but it suited Parker as if the dress had been made for her.

It was a simple tunic style dress, with a wide cut square neck. The fabric skimmed the blonde's exquisite figure like a pair of loving hands and it was all Eliot could do to keep himself from wrapping her in his arms and settling in the room for the night. With strappy high heels, hair in an elegant updo with curls falling all over her face and neck and wearing minimal but beautiful pieces of diamond jewellery, Parker looked like a billion bucks and an angel at the same time.

There was no way he wanted anyone else to see such a beautiful, sexy and unbelievably sophisticated version of Parker. This Parker was all his and he didn't want to share her with anyone else. Oh well, that took care of the decision he'd wanted to make regarding his relationship with the blonde thief. There was no way he could go back to just being her friend after tonight. If he could keep himself from punching someone for talking to her, maybe... just maybe, he could think about talking this out with her later.

Resigning himself to a night of trying to keep a rigid control on his emotions, Eliot sighed before he extended a hand to her, hoping she'd take his silence as nervousness at meeting old friends.

* * *

><p>For her part, Parker was almost hyperventilating. She'd tried to reproduce whatever she remembered Sophie teaching her about dressing for different occasions... she'd asked Eliot about it before and he'd given her detailed ideas about what kind of an event it would be, plus she'd remembered how people had been dressed when they'd stolen that guy's high school reunion some time ago.<p>

She couldn't ask Sophie about this because no one in the team knew that she and Eliot were together on their vacations. When Eliot had approached Nate about taking some personal time off, the mastermind had readily granted him it, and made plans for all of them to take a couple of weeks off, since they'd been pretty much working on different cons flat out for the last six months or so. That had made it a lot easier for Parker and Eliot and they hadn't told the rest of them that Parker would be accompanying Eliot on this vacation trip.

So basically, this was the first time Parker had ever done this by herself and she'd been incredibly nervous. She had no idea if Sophie would approve or whether she was causing a major fashion faux pas by wearing the black dress with strappy sandals... But all that doubt had just melted away when she'd stepped into the hitter's room. Just the sight of that man clad in a really nice dark suit... Armani or something, but definitely hand stitched Italian, had sent delicious shivers up her spine. Eliot had opted for smart semi formals, going for the suit with just a shirt open at the collar underneath.

The contrast of the snowy white of the shirt, the smoky darkness of the suit and the color of his tanned, smooth skin were just making it impossible for Parker to focus on anything that wasn't the hitter. Eliot Spencer looked like one of the finest specimens of the male species she'd ever encountered in her life and Parker was having serious second thoughts about this evening. Now she was gonna have to really control herself from scratching the eyes out of each and every woman that was gonna be flirting with him at the reunion.

Parker had always had feelings that went deeper than normal friendship or camaraderie with Eliot... she'd just chosen not to act on any of it because she didn't like mixing her personal and professional lives... plus, being in a relationship with someone was just not done in their jobs. Giving that much trust and hold over yourself was sort of impossible for the paranoid Parker. But then again, even from day one, Eliot Spencer had been the exception to every damn rule in the book.

Parker trusted Eliot... more than she'd ever trusted anyone else... sometimes she trusted his judgement more than she believed in hers and that was a truly scary thought as to how involved she'd become with this one man. This infuriatingly stubborn, swoon-inducingly sexy and strong man was also the one who cooked for her, who took care of her, who protected her all the time without a complaint. He was also one of the most generous hearted and gentle people she'd ever come across.

After tonight, if she managed to get through the evening without causing some embarrassing incident or the other, Parker vowed to herself to talk this thing out with Eliot... She had a feeling that the hitter wasn't all that unfeeling towards her as he would like to think. Maybe something mice might come out of this after all. With that on her mind, Parker smiled a little as she took his proffered hand and stepped out of the room

* * *

><p>Out in Eliot's rental car, which turned out to be a huge, shiny black SUV, both the thief and hitter were in a much better mood now that each of them had decided that their feelings were worth looking into and that they would each talk with the other once the reunion was done.<p>

Parker was in the passenger seat, bouncing along with the western rock song that was pouring out of the speakers and Eliot had a slight grin on his face as his fingers tapped along with the rhythm of the song that he sang under his breath. As the song finished, he felt Parker turn and look at him with an inquiring look

"What is Parker?"

"Who are we going to be?"

Had anyone else asked him that question he might've sent them away to a mental hospital... but seeing as it was Parker and both of them were used to becoming other people for the sake of appearances, Eliot actually thought about it

"I mean, we have to get our stories straight..."

"Yeah I know... Let's see... I obviously have to be myself... I mean Eliot Spencer."

"Of course but what is it that you do? Something nice obviously because you're wearing Armani and hand stitched Italian leather shoes"

"Nice... you're becomin' better at noticin' this stuff babe... Sophie'll be so proud of ya..."

The bright smile she aimed at him reached its target as it wrapped around Eliot like a shimmery, warm blanket and there was no way he could stop himself from grinning back.

"Okay... I thought about this earlier and how about this?... I am Eliot Spencer, I work as an investment banker at Wall Street. I've played this role before and I am sure that I have enough to pull it off without too much trouble."

"Cool.. okay. Wall Street, Investment banker, multi-millionaire. Now that you have your role, who should I be?"

After thinking about it for a couple of seconds, Eliot just turned to the blonde and said

"Parker... this is a vacation. Just pick something and have fun with it."

"Really?"

The glee with which she said that single word had Eliot doubting his momentary generosity but he refused to back down

"Really."

After that, there was weird mumbling coming from her seat for about two minutes till she straightened with another wide grin on her face that looked like it could power the whole town for a year.

"Okay... I'm done. I wanna be Alice today... Alice White. She'd my most favorite personality. And she's gonna be a rich girl tonight. An heiress maybe. What do you think? I can do whatever I want with all the money I have"

"Whatever you want darlin'... It sounds fine. How about we have her run a couple of charities in whatever free time she has from being a busy socialite? Sound good?..."

"Yeah... I could run with that. Okay so Alice White, no parents, extremely rich heiress who runs a couple of charitable institutions for fun. I also wanna drive a Ferrari and have original impressionists all over my upper East side mansion, sky dive and base jump in my free time and..."

"Alright, alright superwoman... we get it. You can be all that and whatever else you wanna be. That reminds me... how do we know each other?"

He'd barely finished the question when the answer almost floored him

"Girlfriend... or fiancee?... Pick one"

"O-Okay" he choked a bit on the word, still getting over the pace with which she'd said girlfriend. Maybe... just maybe that talk later might go well for them after all. With another slight grin stretching his lips, the hitter turned to Parker

"Okay... Girlfriend... easier to pull off, plus we can't really produce an engagement ring out of the air can we? I know you're the world's best thief but I doubt even you can make diamonds appear from nothing... can you?"

Eliot teasing her was a brand new experience. He was usually too uptight, too guarded to indulge in anything but meaningful conversation. This Eliot was a lot more fun to be around and a lot less forbidding than he usually was. Maybe this was the real Eliot Spencer shining through now that they weren't on a job and he didn't have to worry about having all of their backs and protecting them. If this was the real Eliot, Parker made a promise to herself, that she'd try and make him become this Eliot more often even after they returned to Boston.

The rest of the drive was accomplished in friendly banter, enthusiastic arguments about songs they liked or didn't like and comfortable, companionable silences, though those weren't as populous as they might've been before.

* * *

><p>As the SUV parked outside the group of buildings that looked just like what she'd thought a high school should look like, courtesy of Hardison's tutoring her in all the High School Musical movies, Parker could hardly express her excitement at doing this with Eliot. This was her first vacation and it was already proving to be a very, very memorable experience. She was hardly going to be able to forget how yummy Eliot looked this evening.<p>

She was gonna be going to his reunion as his girlfriend and that gave her a bit of satisfaction because she could protect him from all those flirty ladies out there who were just gonna be flinging themselves at him the minute he walked in that door. Yeah... she wasn't sharing her man anytime tonight and she would make it very clear to anyone who tried to make a move on Eliot.

That decided, as the two of them stepped off the car, Eliot offered her his arm, like the gentleman he was and Parker gracefully took it and let hi guide her towards the huge low building to the one side, which Parker knew to be the gym, which is where the reunion would be held.

Just as they were nearing the entrance, which was festooned with balloons in Maroon, Gold and Black, the colors of Eliot's high school, Parker stopped and pulled him to a halt along with her.

"What is it darlin'? Anything wrong..."

She turned to face him with a part worried, part determined expression on her face that he couldn't quite decipher. It was almost as if she was working up the courage to say or do something but Eliot was sure he was wrong in that assumption because as far as he knew, Parker had never needed to work up the courage to do anything. She was one of the bravest and most straightforward people he knew.

Right then, there was doubt in her eyes but it vanished to be replaced with something new when she closed her eyes and opened them again a second later after taking a deep breath in... determination. Even as the hitter was trying to work out just what was going on, he could feel Parker step closer, put her hands on his arms and stretch up.

Because she was wearing heels, she didn't have to stretch too much to reach her goal. Eliot was still a little confused as to what was happening and he completely wasn't ready for it when he felt something soft, warm and sweet touch his lips in a fleeting caress before returning for a slightly longer touch. The sweet smell and taste of strawberry filled his senses and he let his eyelids fall closed as he put his own hands on her back and pulled the little thief closer so that he could get a better taste of those infinitely tempting lips of hers.

It still didn't make too much sense to Eliot's scrambled brains but he was way past caring. It seemed as if Parker wanted to kiss him and he knew that he'd be the world's biggest fool if he let this opportunity slip away from his hands. The woman he'd lik- no loved for such a long time without even knowing it, was in his arms with her soft, sweet lips on his and there was no way in hell was he going to let this moment slip away.

This kiss was lengthier but still soft, still exploratory... getting to know each other. It was the first kiss between two people who were friends and on their way to becoming more... two people who knew each other very well, who'd been through a whole lot together and who, were now gonna be trying the most exciting thing of them all... being together. Because there was absolutely no doubt in either of their minds now. This was going in one direction and one direction only. The talk that they'd both decided they'd have with each other was all but superfluous now... it would happen, but all that either of them needed to know from the other had become plain just in that one kiss.

Pulling apart after another soft kiss, Parker was amazed at just how much emotion one little kiss could engender in her. It had never been this emotionally intense with anyone else till now and somewhere in the corners of her mind, she was sure that it never would be in the future too. As her dilated greys looked into his sparkling blues, the two of them came to an unspoken understanding... one that could potentially alter their lives to an extent that neither of them had even thought of.

"Well... I just wanted to give you a kiss for good luck..." she joked, trying to lighten the moment

"Why do I need luck hun?... I have all that I need right here by my side..."

This drawled comment along with the teasing smile Eliot sent her way got him another quick kiss in reward as she squeezed his hand and started to pull him towards the lights

The electric atmosphere that had surrounded the couple now receded to the background as a softer, much more comfortable understanding took it's place. They had all the time in the world to get this right... and get it right they would.

As the two of them turned in silent harmony to walk into the gymnasium, Eliot reflected on the fact that he'd needed the help of a bit of his past to lead him down the path to a happier and much more exciting future with the woman he loved by his side. Letting her fingers go in return for putting his arm around her slim waist, Eliot pulled Parker closer as the two of them stepped into the gymnasium and into a whole new part of their lives.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: Okay... so that was it. <strong>_

_**I am sure that when cj95 gave me the prompt of a fic based on a high school reunion, this was definitely not what he or she had in mind. So I am just gonna leave it up to you guys... should I write the actual reunion or not... send in your ideas and lemme know if you want me to continue with this.**_

_**Reviews and feedback are my lifeblood... So please do not forget to send in your comments and ideas for more fics when you can. **_

_**Thank you and lotsa luv**_

_**Macybear**_


	12. Turnabout is fair play

_**A/N: Hi there people! I've been quite busy trying to finish up my other story 'Getting over it' and haven't posted much here in the last month or so... sorry abt that, but I am taking a teeny weeny break from the other fic and I figured I'd put this off enough. **_

_**So here it is, the special edition prompt-fic:**_

_**This story is dedicated to the amazing and utterly special Mercedes. You've been an absolute goddess Mercedes and I couldn't have done half of this without your support. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and here's your fic for being my first 50th review writer. **_

_**saides asked for:**_

**How about Parker in her upfront and straight forward way tells Eliot he's pretty. Then, she tells him she wants to be with him all the time. And finally, she asks him if she can kiss him, and he lets her.**

**Eliot is confused and annoyed, at first, with all the attention until she stops. Then, he lets her know it's not ok for her to change her mind! He turns the tables on her and starts to stalk and tease her the way she did him, and finally, she tells him he belongs to her only for him to explain to her that he just wanted to make sure she understood that!**

_**Okay I know... I know, I changed it up a tiny bit, but I hope (fingers crossed) that you guys still like it... especially you Mercedes. And sorry for being such a long winded writer. I honestly try to trim it down but somehow it just doesn't work the same way!  
><strong>_

_**Please review your thoughts, ideas and feedback.**_

* * *

><p>Eliot Spencer was not what you called a patient man. Associating a word like patient with the hitter was like calling the sky green. It simply didn't happen. Of course he could wait... he was quite used to waiting for the right moment, the best opportunity and the right amount of time you needed to cook something according to its recipe but that didn't mean that he had to like the fact. Eliot hated waiting... he could do it as well as the next guy, but he hated it. And almost everyone who'd met the man even once knew of the fact and made sure that whatever had to be done got done as quickly as possible when the hitter was involved because who knew when the man could lose his temper and then they would all be in deep shit wouldn't they?<p>

He also didn't handle surprises or parties very well, as they'd all learned when Hardison had tried to spook the hitter one day and had to be taken to the hospital with half a dozen ice packs on him, still complaining loudly and volubly about how he'd only just sneaked into the man's room and tried to scare him a bit. Hardison's mouth was still working all right, so everyone assumed the Eliot had gone easy on the hacker after finding out that it was him.

The hitter also hated being annoyed and while he was unfailingly polite and courteous to people in general, you did not want to be the person who provoked his ire in any way... that is, if you wanted to live to tell the story. So basically, Eliot Spencer was about as anti social as they came... the southern gentleman inside him could make him polite, well-mannered and as suave and charming as possible, but that side of him came out only when necessary. When not on a con, Eliot Spencer was not a people person.

But somehow, somewhere along the way Parker, it seemed, had not gotten the memo. She'd been the most annoying and headache inducing presence in Eliot's vicinity for the last week or so and he was at the very fag end of his tether. Just one more occasion where she hovered around him or chattered in his ear pointlessly, and he was going to put her back in her office room next door... right through the wall.

Okay... maybe he was over reacting to just a little enthusiasm from their crazy thief, but dammit he'd taken a blow to the head two days ago and though he didn't have too bad a concussion, it'd left him all irritated and grumpy. And of course, this would be the time when Parker chose to play nursemaid and be all friendly around him.

Eliot knew that Sophie had been training Parker in the art of behaving normally and the only one the thief practiced on in their team, was him... maybe because she felt that he was the only one who wouldn't say anything derogatory or make fun of her if she made mistakes. To the others, all this was just a part of the fun they had as a team. But Eliot knew how serious this was for Parker and she knew that he was aware of it. But these past couple of days, he hadn't been the best or even a passable team mate, companion, friend or test subject. All he'd done was make himself feel more miserable.

But Parker hadn't seemed unduly affected, so that had to count for something. Most of the time, Eliot couldn't even figure that girl out... no... not girl, woman. Though Parker often exuded the innocence of a six year old, there had been plenty of instances that had unequivocally proved to the hitter that Parker was in no way a child or even a girl.

But he knew that maybe for both their sakes, thinking of her as a girl would be the best thing under the circumstances. That would keep him from acting on his... let's say baser instincts. And those were definitely all present and accounted for whenever the lithe, blonde thief pranced around the office clad in the black, skin tight clothes she preferred or performed some crazy death defying stunt during a job or even when she was just being her normal... or should we say, crazy but adorable self. So basically, all the time.

Eliot had always been a ladies man... He didn't deny the fact that his good looks and bad boy attitude got him almost every lady he'd gone after and some he hadn't. But he'd never been this focused on maintaining his cool around any... repeat any woman as he'd had to be around Parker. She didn't just make him want to grab her and kiss the stuffing out of her most of the time. She also made him want to protect her and keep and eye on her twenty-four-seven. What had started as a job had not-so-slowly but surely become a way of life.

Ever since he'd become a part of Leverage Associates, he'd become a protector full-time. The bond that connected him with the rest of him team, his family now, was the kind that wouldn't let the hitter switch off his protective instincts whenever he wished. It had become his innate response to keep an eye on all of them when he was with them and make sure that they were alright when he wasn't. Keeping an eye on Parker itself was a whole twenty four hour job and there was no way he was letting himself slip on that watch.

Parker had slowly but surely insinuated herself into is life and affected him in ways he hadn't even thought of before her... and the whole frustrating thing was, that even now, Eliot wasn't sure how she felt about the whole thing or even _if_ she felt anything. He'd somehow managed to work around the confusion and make himself act normally... or whatever passed for normal around that crazy bunch he liked to call family, for quite some time ow. But all that had been before he'd come back from a job with a concussion and Parker had appointed herself his nurse.

He couldn't fault her for caring because it was clear that she did. It was just that he'd had whatever he could take of her particular brand of caring and was very close to losing his control. If Parker managed to hover around him or stare at him for a minute more, he just might do one of two things, either grab her and kiss her or grab her and throw her out of his office, both of which would be incredibly damaging for their friendship and fledgling pseudo-relationship. Just as he was about to sigh and try to go back to his uneasy nap, he felt it. And there she was... the blonde thief was perched on the armchair next to him and just... staring.

"Dammit Parker... would you stop staring? What is it that is so interesting about my face that you have to stare at it for hours?"

"What? I am just staring... I'm not poking you or even touching you, not disturbing you in any way. Just staring. So why are you getting so riled up about that?"

"It's rude to stare at people like that that's why..." he thought for a beat and added

"... and creepy"

"But I like staring at you" she whined like a six year old being told to go to bed during her favorite cartoon show

Turning to her with a look on his face that said loud and clear 'There's somethin' wrong with you', he started to reiterate what his look conveyed so well when she continued

"I like staring at you cuz you're so pretty"

Okay. That shut him up. For a whole minute, all Eliot could do was stare at the alien that had managed to pass for a human being for such a long time. Because there was no way Parker was in anyway human... not after she'd called him (shudder)'pretty'. The word echoed in his head like it was a curseword of the vilest order. No one... repeat, no one called Eliot Spencer (shudder)'pretty' and got away with it.

And it would be easy cuz it seemed as though Parker was cheerfully unaware of her imminently impending demise as she went on to explain her statement

"Really Eliot... you are quite pretty you know"

There was that damned word again

"Your hair... it's so soft and shiny. Even Sophie's hair isn't as nice as yours. And the way you look when you sleep... all relaxed and happy, as if nothing is going to go wrong in the world and sometimes when you dream or have nightmares, your face gets all scrunched up like you're concentrating really hard on something and I can almost hear your voice going 'Don't worry I am here to take care of it'... It makes me feel all fuzzy and warm inside when you do that"

Okay... she just might have delayed... Delayed, not averted her demise a little bit. Obviously, he wasn't going to kill her for liking his hair, not when he himself spent like an hour on it each day... it was his guilty secret, something that occupied his time and let him feel as if things in his life were normal.

Rolling his head back a little to glance at the thief, he was surprised to see her still staring at him but with an excited smile on her face now. He knew it... he just knew that any moment now, she was gonna open those pouty pink lips of hers and ask him something that just might drive him over the edge.

"Can I touch you?"

Ah... There it was. At least it was gratifying that he knew her that well. He could even predict her craziness now... not saying that it reduced the effect of the crazy anyway, but it felt nice to be able to have that bit of control at least.

"Dammit Parker! You don't go around asking people if you could touch them"

His voice was doing something weird as he felt it come out growly, slightly husky and a bit breathless. Dang it! The images her question had started invoking in his brain were affecting him much more than he liked to admit. He was, after all a red blooded man and there was only so much a man could take. He had to stop this right now... or knowing the crazy blonde, this ride was gonna go so far outta control that he might not even make it to the end of it.

"Oh that's silly Eliot... I don't go around asking people if I could touch them... I only asked you. So... Can I?"

Eliot could do nothing other than close his eyes in resignation and shake his head as he felt her move closer to him even as he opened his mouth to answer her in the negative. But he never got a chance to say anything as it went. Her hands were already in his hair, running through the shiny locks with a soft touch, her nails running lightly over his scalp, her fingers soothing as well as inflaming, her touch admiring as she hummed in pleasure at finally being able to take in the feel of the silky hair on the hitter's head that had been the focus of too many of her dreams.

Eliot sighed and tilted his head involuntarily at her gesture before he caught himself and stiffened in retaliation to whatever extremely pleasant feelings were emanating from her touch right at that moment.

No... This would never do. He couldn't go around reacting so blatantly to every innocent touch of hers... because he knew that that was what it was... innocent. Parker wasn't a wilting wallflower of any sort, but she wasn't your average bar hoppin' girl either. The way the little thief thought was way different from how people generally behaved. Had it been any other woman running her hand through his hair like that, Eliot would know that she would end up spending the night in hs bed... and liking.. no... loving it.

But this was Parker... not someone he would be having a one-night stand with, no matter how much his brain told him how enjoyable it might be. So for both their sakes, it had to stop right this instant and he achieved that by quickly getting up. Clasping her reaching hands in his was another easy matter but it was the disappointment he saw in her eyes combined with the pout that drove him to release her and explain

"Sorry Parker... But I don't like it if someone touches my hair."

"Why? It feels so nice... so soft and silky"

He couldn't stop the slight grin from creeping onto his face at her genuine curiosity.

"Would you like it if someone touched Bunny without your permission?"

He couldn't have stopped the full fledged grin that made it's way onto his face if his life depended on it when he spied the tough, almost ruthless expression on hers as she answered

"I'd tie them up in jump cord and dangle them upside down by their toes before their filthy hands could touch Bunny... Oh"

The expression changed to one of comprehension as she made the connection

"Sorry Eliot... do you want me to go hang upside down?"

The off hand question and the straight forward way it was said kinda threw him off for a second before he chuckled, shaking his head

"Nah... It's ok... Plus I know you'd enjoy that a bit too much for it to be any sort of punishment"

The guilty expression on her face fairly screamed 'caught' before she too smiled in reaction to his comment.

"So... I can't touch you hair... Ummm... Can I kiss you?"

This little thief managed to do something that no one had done in a long time. Surprise Eliot Spencer. Not two minutes ago he'd been thinking that he knew her well enough to predict her actions quite accurately... but no. She had to go and wreck his assumptions with that one.

"W-Wh...What was that?"

"I asked... if I could kiss you?"

"Why?"

"No reason... I'm just curious."

"Dammit Parker! You don't do this. You don't just kiss some random guy because you're curious"

"Come on Eliot... stop being such an idiot okay?... You are hardly some random guy. I know you, you're my friend and I like the way you make me feel. I feel all safe and warm when I am around you and... I trust you"

That was that. That last sentence made the decision for him. She trusted him. His little thief had said the three words that would've and did make the difference. Resigned to his fate and an increase in the number and length of dreams that were fueled by Parker, Eliot raised his eyes to meet hers.

She must've seen something different in them because she moved a bit forward, bringing her closer to him. Him sitting on the couch and her kneeling on the floor, their faces were at almost the same level. He could see the startings of what could be desire in the grey depths of her eyes and he knew that she would definitely see that emotion in his. Pulling her closer, Eliot dipped his head a bit while placing his hand under her chin, tilting her face up to meet his. He heard her draw a quick breath just before his lips met hers.

He kinda wished he could say he felt fireworks go off, the heavens opened up and in that moment he knew that he'd be spending the rest of his life with Parker. But honestly, it was just two people, who were exploring... cautiously stepping out of their comfort zone of friendship to see if they could maybe be something more... Or maybe that was just him. Parker could've just been indulging in an experiment of sorts but knowing her even as much as he did, he could feel that something was different about her... about this. She wasn't reacting the way he'd expected her to, but then she just never did and that was half the fun.

That first kiss... the hesitant brushing of lips wasn't really a portent of things to come as the two of them proved it quite wrong in just under a minute. The second time their lips met, things were as volatile, as crushing as the first one had been hesitant and soft. This time, it was a no holds barred, nothing held back open mouthed kiss that took as much as it gave. In seconds, Eliot had pulled Parker up from her crouch on the floor into his lap where she sat straddling his legs as her lips danced along with his, her tongue sweeping along his bottom lip making the hitter groan. It was her turn to moan when he bit her plump bottom lip lightly before sweeping into her mouth and taking possession of her tongue.

Eliot hands, which had been resting on her back dropped lower as he pulled her closer, his hands squeezing her hips as her tongue flicked at his lower lip again, drawing another groan from him. Parker's hands drifted from his arms, to his shoulders and into his hair, fisting in his locks as his hands squeezed at her sides again in an attempt to pull her closer. And then all of a sudden she almost yanked her hands out of his hair, jerking him back to reality from where he'd been floating on a cloud of desire for the blonde currently draped all over him. Pulling away, all he could do for the moment was look at her with a question in his eyes

"Sorry... you just told me that you don't like it when people touch your hair"

The guilty expression on her face... a face that was flushed due to their previous activity, her eyes dilated and her lips swollen... it all just served to make him groan, both in desire as well as frustration.

"That's not... What I meant was... Ah! Forget it!"

Slowly pulling away further from her, Eliot gently disentangled himself from Parker and sat her on the cushion beside him as he ran his fingers through his disarrayed hair, trying to get back some modicum of control over the situation. He couldn't believe that Parker had, with a few not so innocent words and actions shot his control to hell and back and that they'd just kissed the stuffing out of each other. Or the fact that he would gladly be back doing just that if given the slightest opportunity.

Once that thought made itself known, Eliot couldn't get off that couch quickly enough. He knew Parker was gazing at him quizzically but for the life of him he couldn't look at her now. If he did, they would just be back to doing what they'd been a minute back and he needed to get his thoughts straightened out and the situation back in his control before he could afford to see her again.

That kiss had brought out things and feelings that Eliot had buried so deep inside himself that he'd been sure they'd never see the light of day again. The last time he'd even remotely felt like this had been ages back with Aimee and even then, he'd never been affected this much with just one simple touch. Whatever Parker had brought out in him was better off buried, and he would do his best to keep it that way.

"Eliot..."

A little apprehensive about what she was gonna say, Eliot turned, not all that willing to stand there and listen

"Look... let's get this straight. I like you... And you make me feel safer and more secure than I've ever felt in my entire life. Around you, I can afford to be more 'me' than around any one else... even Hardison, Sophie or Nate because I know that even if you don't understand me, you've never tried to get me to change. I like being around you... I like eating your food and I definitely like it when you kiss me. But I like things the way they are and I don't want them to change..."

"But they already have. Don't you see it? You shouldn't have kissed me Parker... This shouldn't have happened"

"Look Eliot... Both of us liked it. Didn't we?"

At his slightly hesitant nod she continued

"So how can it be wrong?... Look... let's not make this more complicated than it already is. I know that you're not looking for a life long relationship thing and neither am I. So let's just focus on the here and now and we'll worry about other things later. Okay?"

Before Eliot could say anything to that, someone knocked on the door and Sophie had poked her head in.

"Come on Parker... we're going shopping. Come on... you promised"

And she literally dragged the blonde thief away, leaving a very confused hitter to think over just what had happened in the last few minutes. Hurricane Parker had just swept over his carefully ordered life and it was all in shambles at his feet. Sighing at the effect that the thief was already having in his life and shaking his head at the thought of her continued presence, Eliot decided that the best way to get over his confusion was to lose himself in a bit of training... and maybe a long cold shower later.

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><p>Of course, a year's worth of cold showers couldn't negate the effect Parker seemed to be having on him lately. After that day in his office, she seemed to have taken his very presence as a permission to get up close and personal, the Parker way. This meant that she sat next to him during meetings with absolutely no regard for the concept of personal space, hovered around the kitchen when he cooked, coerced him into spotting for her when she tried out her new harness and of course, dropped in whenever she felt she needed either of three things - company, food or long, hot, 'stuff that wet dreams are made of' kisses. Not that he'd particularly protested any of it... rather he'd done absolutely nothing by way of protest.<p>

It had been going on for a week now... And he was still getting used to it. Parker in his personal space wasn't all that tough to take but Eliot still had no idea what to make of the thief's behavior. She'd been acting like a girlfriend all week but still refused to call whatever it was between them a relationship. He was just adjusting to her brand of craziness when... it all stopped.

As abruptly as it had all started, it stopped and for the life of him, Eliot couldn't figure out what the heck had happened. Hardison had called him to go to a bar with him one night after a job and when Eliot had gotten back home, Parker had just disappeared. But then, she was always pulling stunts like that so he hadn't been really worried. She'd turned up at the offices the next day, but behaved as if the last couple of weeks had never happened. Eliot felt nothing but a little puzzled at first. He'd never completely understood the mental workings of the little blonde woman that drove him this crazy... but ignoring him and acting as if nothing had happened was not something he was prepared to take.

First off, he knew that she was angry about something but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what. He hadn't specifically done anything... and Parker wasn't the kind of woman who got angry for small things like him forgetting to do something. The only thing that came back to him was that trip to the bar with Hardison. She'd been fine before he'd mentioned that trip and now she was acting all... okay he finally got it. Somehow... for some stupid reason, Parker was... jealous. He didn't know why or how... but he'd known enough women in his life to know jealousy when he saw it.

Not that knowing the cause of her actions were helping any because she steadfastly refused to even talk about it and Eliot, the man who wasn't exactly famous for his patience was close to losing it. If he couldn't get her to talk ot him, well all that was left to do was one thing. He would just give the crazy thief a taste... of her own medicine. Then we'd see how much she liked it.

* * *

><p>Parker was... she didn't even know what it was she felt anymore. Two weeks back, she'd been your normal, average thief with no stupid ideas of boys, feelings or forever afters running around her brain. Okay... that wasn't completely accurate. She had them... just not running around her brain. She had all those aforementioned things all stuffed up and locked tight in a safe that she had thought was unbreakable. Turned out all it needed to fling its doors wide open had been one simple kiss... from no other than Eliot.<p>

Even though Parker wasn't the kind to discuss her feelings unlike some other people namely Hardison, she could hardly not feel them. That kiss with Eliot had been something that both of them hadn't expected. It had gone miles above and beyond what she had come to expect your mild, garden variety first kiss to be. And believe you me, she'd had a lot of them... and not much else because Parker never liked anyone enough to stay for more than one night and the men who she'd spent her time with, didn't spend too much time kissing when they could be doing other things. So that kiss had spoken to her in ways she hadn't even understood till almost a week later.

Parker knew that even though she'd told Eliot that it wasn't that big a deal that day, she had started seeing the hitter in a different way from then on, making her behave differently around him. Parker had spent the week acting as if Eliot was her boyfriend despite her regular mental protests to the contrary. And then he'd gone along with Hardison to that bar. Knowing Hardison, he was going to the bar to pick up chicks and Eliot had gone along with him without making any protests. Of course, Parker knew that she had no grounds to become angry at that... she had no claim on the hitter... they weren't seeing each other, they weren't anything more than friends and they sure as heck weren't sleeping together. It had just been that one kiss... but that had been enough to change things dramatically... for her at least. She had no idea how the hitter felt about it all.

The thief knew that she had no reason to feel the unjust anger she was feeling at Eliot now but knowing that it was wrong didn't make her feelings any better. Somehow, somewhere along the way, her heart had gotten involved and now she was feeling all possessive and jealous about Eliot. She remembered how growly he'd been one night last week when they'd all been at the bar downstairs and Sophie had been teaching her to flirt. She'd tried out her new lessons by flirting with some random guy at the bar and when she'd gotten back all smiles and a wallet heavier, Eliot had been ready to almost kick that guy's ass if he so much as tried to touch Parker.

It hadn't been very obvious, but Sophie had noticed and teased him about it softly, hearing which Parker had just baldly told the hitter that he was being annoyingly overprotective and that she could take care of herself. Boy had she got it wrong then... And God did she understand how he'd felt that night if it was anywhere close to what she was feeling right now thinking about Eliot having some random airhead all draped over him.

Deciding that she needed to clear her head, Parker shook her head and ran out to the kitchen, jumping onto her zipline and riding it to the roof of their building. From there it was an easy ride to the rooftop of the Hansen building downtown, which happened to be the tallest building in the city. It was where Parker felt most comfortable and it was a place where she often came to think. And that was what she needed to do a lot of right now... These weird feelings of possessiveness and jealously over Eliot weren't gonna help her any and she needed to figure out a way to get rid of them.

Before the night was out, she'd come to the conclusion that she really didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to her weird feelings about Eliot. She couldn't just start hoping for a perfect relationship whenever she felt like it and she was also pretty sure that Eliot wasn't looking for something like that. And even if he was, she wasn't exactly stellar girlfriend material... Eliot had women hanging around him by the dozens and he could literally have any woman he wanted without putting too much effort into it. She would only end up even more confused and emotionally depleted if she went down this road.

Deciding that it was much safer for her own mental and emotional health if she suppressed her emotions for a bit, see how this thing between them panned out, Parker felt curiously relieved... as if she'd just pulled off a major heist, but a certain feeling of emptiness also remained, telling her that maybe taking the high road on this one might not have been the best idea. But she had a lifetime's worth of practice ignoring feelings and emotions and it wasn't gonna start changing overnight, over one single man... not even the hellishly frustrating, stupidly obtuse, sinfully sexy man in question.

* * *

><p>And so it was... she'd gone back to acting normally, or as normal as she got around Eliot. She could see that it was bothering him. He'd even tried to talk to her about it, something she hadn't really expected from the usually silent hitter, but she'd kinda chickened out. The thief had never been very good talking about difficult things like feelings and emotions and she wasn't about to botch one of her best relationships of all time by saying something wrong. So she refused to talk about it and surprisingly, Eliot let it rest.<p>

But she hadn't known then that the man was as devious as they came. He'd remained quiet for a day or so after that and then it had started. Everywhere Parker went, there he was, hanging around, always in her line of vision, always in the vicinity. She could literally feel his eyes on her constantly... he was almost stalking her. Of course, he respected her privacy and left her alone when she left the office to get back to her warehouse but anytime before that seemed to be fair game. She'd almost lost her ability to concentrate with the feel of his eyes on her. His eyes made her feel warm, comfortable and at the same time hot and squirm-y... she couldn't figure out what he was doing to her.

She'd known all along that Eliot Spencer wasn't a man to cross but she'd never thought she'd ever be on the other side of his attentions. It was quite nerve-wracking, being the subject of his sole attention. And the worst of it was, she knew exactly what she'd done to deserve this. Because she'd done almost the exact same thing to him, not two weeks ago. Granted, she hadn't stared him into submission, but she'd done almost everything else... Oh did she forget to mention that?

The staring wasn't the only thing going on. He'd always pick the seat next to her... then there were seemingly innocent touches... just his fingers grazing against her skin, almost like a butterfly's kiss, but all at times when she least expected it. She'd stretch to get something and whens her shirt rode up to expose a sliver of skin, his hand would just graze across the exposed skin, making her shiver in reaction. A slight touch on her shoulder to gain her attention had warmth spreading from the point of contact right down her arm to her fingers. She couldn't understand it... it was almost as if her body was expecting the touches and reacting to them in a super-sensitive manner. It was almost more than she could take. The world's best criminals had nothing on Eliot Spencer when it came to getting revenge.

* * *

><p>Okay. She'd had it. There was only so much anyone could take and Eliot Spencer was bent on torturing her into submission. What he didn't know, was that his latest action though, just might get his ass kicked. Parker, the ever lover of cartoons would tell you that she loved Thomas the Tank Engine, and right now, she was doing quite a credible impression of the aforementioned character. Oh yeah... Eliot was getting his ass royally kicked tonight. In his apparent enjoyment of her discomfort over the last couple of days, he had stepped over the threshold and was in dangerous territory now and they were back to the place which had started all those problems a couple of weeks ago.<p>

The team had just finished yet another job, and were celebrating the fact at the bar downstairs. They were all sitting at their usual table or rather, they'd all been. Eliot, who'd gone to the bar to get another round of beers for all of them was now involved in what couldn't with good conscience be termed as a conversation... with a rather curvy blonde. She woman was almost throwing herself, ladies first, at Eliot and the man seemed to be not very unenthusiastic about it. He hadn't done anything per se, to invite the woman, but then, he hadn't really done anything to dissuade her either.

Seeing her almost draped over the hitter who wasn't really doing anything to stop her was the proverbial straw that broke through Parker's control. Downing the rest of her drink in a single gulp, she dragged her chair back with an air that would dissuade anybody who knew her well enough to not mess with her right then, and proceeded to stalk straight toward the object of her focus.

The quiet call of 'Go Parker' from Hardison only served to put a smirk on her face as she turned all her focus on the fake blonde who was trying to put the moves Eliot and the man who was _**hers**_.

Walking up to the duo, Parker casually insinuated her slim body between that of the hitter and the other woman, slinging one hand behind his neck at the same time. Without a word, she just dragged Eliot's head down to hers and slanted her lips over his. The response she got from Eliot was so immediate that it was gratifying. A slight sense of calm came over the little blonde thief as she just relaxed into the arms that had come around her waist, holding her to him, anchoring her to his hard, muscular body while his mouth elicited reactions from all over her body. Every part of her was tingling in reaction to the frank sensuousness of Eliot's kiss, the fact that he wasn't afraid to kiss her like that in a room full of people, in front of their family, was making Parker quite giddy with happiness.

The two of them were so involved in the liplock that they almost failed to register the various reactions they got from the near full bar... almost. At least a dozen catcalls, a couple of whistles, a 'Oh will you get a room?' and a couple of embarrassed coughs resulted. Hardison had been responsible for at least one catcall, Sophie was smiling smugly as if she'd been the one to get them together and Nate... well the mastermind seemed almost resigned to the development but Eliot could almost hear the not so silent threat for him if he did anything to hurt the blonde that was currently wrapped around him like a limpet.

The woman he'd been trying to gently let down, the fake blonde was nowhere to be seen and Parker... well she looked like the cat that ate the canary and the cream all in one go. She dragged his head down again by fisting a hand in his work shirt and pulling, but this time instead of kissing him, her mouth went to his ear

"You've had your fun for the last couple of days... but no more. I don't like it when other women flirt with you... and you know I don't really play well with others... So from now on, You're mine. Okay?"

The smile this statement elicited might've been the biggest and the happiest to ever grace Eliot Spencer's face. Still grinning his head off at the little thief's possessiveness over him, Eliot bent a bit more and pressing an impulsive soft kiss to her smiling lips and laughed a bit at her expression

"That's perfect babe... as long as you remember that it works both ways. If I am to be yours, then you're gonna be all mine."

His playful expression melted away to reveal a seriousness that made Parker sober up

"I don't plan on giving you up anytime soon hun... We can take it as slow as you want, but I wanna make it clear right now that I am in this for the long haul. I am gonna be around in your life for as long as we both want it, but if this is some temporary fling or something for you, I suggest you pull back right now"

"Nope... I already told you Eliot. I trust you and I know you'll always be there for me when I need you. From now on I promise that I'll try my best to be there for you when you need me too... forever if need be"

"That's all I'm asking for baby."

As Parker pulled herself up on her toes once more to press another soft, sweet kiss on Eliot's upturned lips, she could almost feel it... the happiness floating around them. Not just their happiness, but that of their team too. Without even asking, Parker knew that Nate, Hardison and Sophie were all very happy for the two of them. For the first time in her life, Parker was in a situation where there were no grey areas, no hidden agendas, no double crosses and no need to be constantly vigilant.

It would definitely take some getting used to, this feeling of equanimity and happiness, but Parker was sure that with Eliot and her family around, this feeling could maybe just become normal to her in time.

Wrapping her arms around her man's waist, Parker snuggled into the solid warmth of his chest as she felt Eliot press a soft kiss into her hair and fit her head into the curve of his neck so that every part of her was in some way connected to every part of him. Right now, right in this moment, with the secure warmth of Eliot surrounding her and the knowledge that their team was actually happy for them, Parker could almost see the future shaping up. She knew it wouldn't exactly pan out the way she wanted it to... but with Eliot, Sophie, Hardison and Nate firmly on her side, she knew that whatever got thrown their way, they could deal with it. Together.

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><p><em><strong>AN: So what did you think?**_

_**Reviews are food for my muse who's been starving due to the lack of any e/p in the last episode of Leverage. Seriously... the writers need to get it together. How can they not see the rightness of E/P?**_

_**Mini-Rant aside, please review... you guys don't know how much your feedback means to me. **_

_**Saides, I hope you liked it... will be waiting for your comments. :)**_

_**Lotsa luv and Viennese Fingers (something special in honor of the occasion... special fic, special cookies) :)**_

_**Macybear**_


	13. Blast from the Past Chapter 11 part 2

_**A/N: Hello there... again, as always, sorry for the delay in posting. Have been quite busy with Nanowrimo and finishing up other stories this last month. **_

_**I apologize for not posting anything here for quite sometime... but what can I do? The writers of the show just don't give me enough inspiration to delve into these characters anymore. It seems like too much of it is being made up in my mind and I usually like to work around facts from the show. So it's gonna be a little tough, consequently slow progress... but I promise all you incredibly patient readers... we'll get there. Scout's honor. :) **_

_**So without further ado, here's the second portion of the reunion fic... on demand. Don't forget to review your thoughts and ideas. There might just be another part of this fic in the offing yet.**_

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><p><em><em>The gym was decorated all in the school colors with banners everywhere welcoming the students of the Class of '96. There were maroon, gold and black balloons everywhere, on the walls, tied to tables, on the stage where a band was playing and all over the floor. There was a buffet table to one side and the huge room was filled with people. So, it felt like your typical high school function... like senior prom... something that Eliot would pay to not remember. Ever.

But it didn't seem like the day was going to go the way he'd wanted. Proven by the fact that he was in fact standing at the entrance to his old school gym, with an obviously excited Parker on him arm, looking like a kid on a sugar rush being let loose in a candy store. Looking around, Eliot was able to recognize some of them, but most people drew a blank in the hitter's mind. But then, his social circle had been different... he'd been the focal point of the jocks and always accompanied by the cheerleader chicks. In other words, Eliot Spencer, retrieval specialist, had had a perfectly normal high school life being a popular jock. But things had changed now... he had changed and he wasn't sure he wanted to bring back any part of his past into his present. He still didn't know if he wanted to show Parker the side of him that these people had known, a decade and a half ago.

Parker couldn't get over the fact that she was actually at Eliot's high school reunion. She could get to see what he'd been like so many years ago, she'd get to meet his friends... people who knew him and maybe get to know stuff about him that he might not willingly disclose. Had she been in this sort of a situation a year ago, she would have wanted that sort of information for blackmail material... but now, she just wanted to know because she was curious... she wanted to get to know Eliot Spencer for the guy he'd been before devils like Damien Moreau got a hold of him. And the way to that kind of information was through the people in the room.

These people, who all had the same reason for being there... the fact that fifteen years ago, they'd graduated from the same halls. Parker could almost visualize a younger Eliot roaming the halls with a bunch of jock friends, effortlessly making all the girls fall all over him, charming all the teachers and making all the guys want to be like him. He would've been a popular guy... not that he'd have tried to be one, it just happened. People noticed when Eliot was in a room. They did it now, and Parker was sure that they would have, even when he'd been younger. He just happened to have that special something that garnered that kind of attention.

Parker was quite grateful for her battle dress and the effort she'd taken tonight because the moment the two of them stepped into the bright and decorated gym, she could feel almost every pair of eyes in the room turn around and fix on them. A slight hush enveloped the crowd before a buzz of conversation took over as people all over tried to figure out just who the two people coming in were.

Parker was well aware of all the female eyes in the room stuck to Eliot. The women were all hungrily running their eyes over him as if he was a filet mignon and they'd all been starved for the last couple of days. It was all she could do to stop herself from turning on her heel and pulling Eliot out of the gymnasium along with her just so that they could get away from all the hungry eyes. They were here for Eliot's high school reunion and she wasn't leaving till she and Eliot actually wanted to.

Eliot on the other hand had no such qualms. The minute they'd entered the room, all the male eyes had turned to see who came in and gotten stuck on the new and improved, sexy version of Parker. While he was happy that he was the guy who brought her to the party and the guy who'd be leaving with her tonight... okay, maybe it wasn't such a great idea to think about that now. Parts of him were growing slightly uncomfortable and they did have to stay for atleast a hour or two before they could leave...okay, okay... no talk about leaving at all. But seriously, Eliot was mere seconds away from dragging Parker out of the room, before he punched some guy in the face for staring at her legs two seconds too long.

It might've happened, had a clearly excited lady, with a poofy hairdo, an overly tight pink dress and a smile a mile wide, not stepped into their line of vision and nearly hopped over to them in her excitement to meet them.

"Hi!" squeaked the woman who Parker had labeled 'pink bunny lady' in her mind, almost rocking on her heels in enthusiasm. She quickly held a hand out, which both Eliot and Parker shook almost automatically as she went on

"Welcome to Cedar Hill High's fifteen year reunion!... We are very pleased to have you here. Please take your name badges before you go in and start mingling."

She turned to a table behind her that they hadn't noticed before and popped up again like the bunny that Parker had thought her to be, and handed two little labels for them to stick onto their clothing. While Parker's had been handed to her quite unceremoniously, the lady in pink seemed to be personally making sure that Eliot's little name tag was perfectly positioned.

"Hey... what's written on yours?"

Eliot, who clearly hadn't noticed anything wrong with his label, peered down at it, where it was being smoothed onto his jacket by the pink bunny lady, who seemed to be taking her time, smoothing it out more than a teeny tiny little label needed. Before the retrieval specialist could answer, the lady, whose tag seemed to read Lydia, answered for him

"Oh it's just his name on the tag that I wrote out once I saw him enter the gym..." she simpered before flashing what she must've thought was a seductive smile at Eliot, but which in reality looked anything but seductive to the hitter. With a slight embarrassed grimace, he tried to step back from the woman, who was clearly trying to flirt with him, as Parker's frown became more pronounced. He was a little worried about her reaction but when she opened her mouth, her question wasn't what he'd expected

"You remember his name?"

There was a slight inflection in her voice that suggested a little bit of surprise at that. Eliot didn't have time to figure out whether he wanted to be act injured at her surprise at it or not, before Lydia jumped in with her answer... her tone catching quite a bit of ice as she turned from Eliot's broad chest to look at Parker properly for the first time, and seeing what she considered competition. Had it not been Parker, and had it not been his reunion that he'd been strong armed to attend, Eliot might've found it amusing. But as it was, he'd been close to dragging her out of there even before it started, now, he was almost sure that nothing good could come of something that had started on such a great note.

"Of course... who wouldn't remember Eliot Spencer? He was our football star and Homecoming King!... And quite the charmer back then too... He's gone out with pretty much every girl in the year book"

Lydia had turned back to flash another so called seductive smile at Eliot while Parker gaped at the two inch thick year book she'd pointed to. But she didn't seem too worried about the number of girls he'd dated, like he thought she would be. Instead, the little thief, was at the book in a second, flipping pages like mad, searching for something.

"Parker... darlin' what're you searchin' for?"

"Hmmm?... I'm trying to find your picture... Wanna see what Eliot Spencer looked like back then..."

Parker indulged in some frantic page flipping while Eliot had finally freed himself somewhat from the lingering clutches of Lydia Baker, whom he'd finally remembered as the girl who'd probably not changed one bit in the intervening fifteen years. She'd been an intolerable flirt then, and she was one now too.

"Ah-aah!..."

The little blonde's triumphant tone made Eliot turn to her with a little bit of apprehension. He knew exactly what his year book pictures looked like and he wasn't sure he wanted Parker looking at them so early into the reunion. Basically because, it had been a done deal while they'd been in high school that he would marry Aimee and settle down in Cedar Hill to manage her dad's ranch. So literally every picture of his in the book probably had a redhead hanging off his arm looking quite comfortable there. Eliot knew that Parker hadn't liked Aimee all that much back when they'd come to her dad's ranch almost a couple of years ago and he was quite sure that her mood wasn't gonna get any better when she saw him with Aimee draped around his body in a bunch of pictures.

He'd been so involved in his thoughts, that he'd almost missed the huge smile that seemed to just light up Parker's face as she gazed down upon the bunch of different pictures featuring him. Of course, as he'd known, Aimee was there in all but one of them, looking like she belonged there... he'd expected more of a reaction from himself at seeing those pictures. Something akin to what he'd felt two years ago when they'd met each other after such a long time. It had been sort of like the uncontrolled passion they usually felt, that they'd mistaken for love all those years ago. But now, seeing her in those pictures next to him, Eliot felt... nothing. It was just another picture, just another moment in his life that he'd lived fifteen years ago. He'd come a long way since then, and he found that whatever the manner in which he'd achieved it, he was happy about the person he was now, and the distance that existed between the Eliot of high school and the Eliot that stood at the entrance to the gym with Parker now.

Now as Parker looked at him with eyes sparkling in excitement at having found something of his that she hadn't known, Eliot relaxed automatically and smiled back at her, causing her smile to brighten considerably. The effect of her open, carefree smile on Eliot was considerable... and he told her just that.

"Baby... if you don't stop smiling like that just now, we might never make it past the entrance before I drag you back to our hotel rooms for the night."

Parker's smile only dialed up in the sparkle factor at that, and Eliot found himself seriously contemplating just ditching this whole thing, no matter what he's promised Molly. She'd understand once she met Parker... or he could make something up. Again involved in his thoughts, he'd uncharacteristically missed the entirety of Parker printing 'Alice White' in neat letters on her name tag with no little amount of satisfaction, and pressing it onto the top left portion of her dress.

"Come on cowboy... let's get going.."

Eliot had no problem with that... only he wanted to be heading in the other direction... out of the gymnasium. Sighing a bit, the hitter followed his thief as she literally pulled him into the throng of people that populated the floor of the huge gymnasium, both of them moving swiftly in order to avoid the clutching hands of Lydia, who it seemed wanted to get her pink painted claws into Eliot Spencer for the night. But all their escape from Lydia did, was to throw them from the frying pan right into the hottest part of the fire.

The whole building seemed to be filled with women that seemed to want to get their hands on Eliot Spencer. The ones Parker had seen eying up the man next to her like a piece of meat, were now in the process of trying to get him to ditch her for the evening... while random guys came up and introduced themselves to her and asked her a bunch of really weird questions like when she'd come down from heaven and why she'd not come into his life earlier. Parker answered these questions the way she thought Alice would, consequently giving people the impression that she was nothing but a stereotypical dumb blonde. An impression that Eliot wasn't gonna try too hard to correct. If the women swarming around him thought that he wasn't serious about her they might just leave her alone and the two of them probably could get out of this thing before they had some really dead people on their hands. But that plan had a fatal flaw in it... being the fact that a slightly crazy, out of it hot chick was probably an invitation for guys to try their luck with.

In the next five minutes, Eliot had to stop himself from bashing in a little over twelve guys, who made it very clear that they would love to spend some time showing Alice White a great time... and also made it very clear that their idea of showing her a great time involved the two of them and a room, possibly a bed. That Parker successfully sent away each and every one of them was not something that Eliot was focusing on. While he was stuck with women who could've been sharks in their previous lives, Parker was being hit on by a bunch of half drunk idiots... and there was almost no way he could get to her without hurting at least one or two of his fan girls that surrounded him.

As Parker fielded most of the drunk guys that stopped by to chat with her, and kept inviting her to see the insides of their hotel rooms with them, she could feel Eliot get more and more tense some five feet to her right. There, right in the middle of his circle of fan girls... if the ladies populating the crowd could be called that, Parker could see him tensing up, his muscles clenching with the sheer amount of force he was exerting to stop himself from hurting someone... either by mistake or on purpose. It amused Parker that even while he wasn't on the job, he was automatically tuned to being her protector. He was so focused on what was happening with her that he had almost failed to notice that the women surrounding him were parting to let someone get closer to him.

The first thing he saw about the woman who he felt walking towards him, as his eyes were still on Parker, who was trying to talk her way out of yet another proposal to leave the party and have some fun from yet another drunk guy, was the fact that she had red hair... familiar... red hair. The hitter's already stiff body became almost rock still as he sensed Aimee Martin stand in front of him, with a slight smirk twisting her lips.

"Long time no see darlin'..."

Eliot could almost feel the hair on the back of his head stand up as he heard the well known honeyed tones of the redhead penetrate the silence that had suddenly fallen as everyone and their cousin waited to see his reaction to meeting his one-time sweetheart, the woman he'd made clear to everyone that he would end up marrying, when they'd been in high school. No one had been able to get over the fact that they'd broken up and he'd left Cedar Hill, the local gossip circle painting him every shade of black in the next couple of years for ditching Aimee after having given her dreams of forever. What the people hadn't known then, of course, was that it had been probably the most difficult decision of his life, but he'd already been involved in things he'd had no intention of exposing Aimee to and he'd left only so that he could protect the people he loved and respected.

He'd never even thought of defending his decision for a long period of time, feeling that it hadn't been the right one to make even if it was the only one he could make at that point of time, regretting the fact that not only had he left Aimee and his family, but he'd done so to join forces with someone like Damien Moreau. But he now knew that the man he was, the person he'd become due to his experiences in the last decade or so, showed him that he couldn't have survived the life that would've been expected of him had he stayed in Cedar Hill itself. He had too strong a spirit to be confined to one space, for the rest of his life and he knew that had he stayed there itself, he would've sacrificed a huge part of himself for the sake of the people who loved him... or worse, ended up hurting someone who he wouldn't have wanted to hurt for anything.

A big part of him knew that the reason that he had such an amazing relationship with his family, Molly, Brian and the kids, was that he spent most of the year away from them and whenever he came back to Cedar Hill, they would always be waiting to hear his stories of exotic places and people.

He'd known somewhere in the back of his mind, that he would be seeing Aimee at the reunion, but he hadn't really paid attention to that part of him, the rest of his mind focused on just how beautiful Parker looked. As a result, neither was he prepared to see her before him, nor was his brain in any condition to answer her. And he definitely wasn't prepared to do anything when she launched herself, into his arms, her hands going into his hair with the familiarity of someone who'd done it hundreds of times.

His arms went around her in reaction before he caught Parker stiffening slightly out of the corner of his expression of hurt that flashed across her face for a second before she concealed it with the mastery of someone who'd spent most of their life masking their emotions, tore at his heart in a way nothing had in a long time. Over the last so many years of working as a hitter and retrieval specialist, especially due to the years spent working for Moreau, Eliot had learned not to let things bother him anymore. Most things that got to other people didn't even make an impression on the laconic hitter anymore. He'd almost been callously indifferent about a lot of things, having learnt not to let emotions become a part of the job. But now, since he'd acknowledged the fact that he'd let the crazy little blonde thief steal his heart, he found that he was extremely aware of her, of her reactions, of the way she stood, the way she moved, of her feelings... everything that had anything to do with her.

And now, he could see that she was feeling hurt over the spectacle that Aimee was making of them and the fact that he was letting her. Knowing that he had to play this carefully if he wanted to get out of this and live through the night, Eliot carefully disentangled himself from the clinging Aimee and leaned back gingerly

"Hi Aimee... How're you doin'?"

"You're asking as if you don't know handsome..."

By now, Eliot was beyond confused. He'd been focusing on Parker and her reactions to Aimee's presence till now, but Aimee's confusing answer to his distracted query had pulled all his senses into alert mode. There was something going on here that he wasn't aware of... something that was lingering in the expectations of everyone around him. Something that he could see in Aimee's expression seemed off... he was a hitter and not always in touch with his emotions and other people's, but even he could understand that she held some sort of an expectation from this evening that he'd had no idea about and could not fulfill. It was high time he got himself out of this mess that was brewing and opting for the safest way out, Eliot unwrapped Aimee's arms around him and stretching slightly to his left, caught a hold of Parker by her arm. Pulling her close to his side, the hitter wrapped an arm around her waist and turned back to face the redhead

"I hope you remember Alice... you guys met the last time I came down here with my friends a couple fo years ago..."

"Of course... how could I forget?... You're Eliot's... friend aren't you? The one who's afraid of horses?" came the lightly delivered and barely veiled insult from the tall redhead as she looked down her nose at the little blonde by Eliot's side.

Eliot could almost feel both himself and Parker flinch at the same moment... both for different reasons though. Eliot was flinching at the way he could see this night shaping up to be a disaster of epic proportions, something that even James Cameron couldn't do justice to, and Parker on the other hand flinched at the mention of the deadly, marauding animals that, for some weird reason, Eliot seemed to love. The comment about horses and the fact that Aimee Martin seemed to know the woman who was with Eliot seemed to start a whole new buzz of gossip around them.

The fact that she hated horses made her into an automatic outsider and what they called a 'townie' in their minds as people around Cedar Hill took their horses very seriously. It also served to cement the guys impression that she was nothing more than arm candy, and so fair game for all of them. After all, Eliot Spencer, the best among them when it came to horses could hardly be serious about someone who claimed to hate the animals. With one sentence, Aimee had managed to alienate Parker completely but Eliot had probably underestimated Parker's social skills because she was right by his side, smiling sweetly as she asked

"Oh right... This is that Aimee... right Eliot? Your ex-girlfriend that you said got married to your best friend right after you left?... It is nice to meet some of Eliot's old friends. I might be a major part of his life now, but it is really nice to get to know you guys who were his friends such a long time ago. I can't wait to find out how my cowboy was when he was a kid"

The statement was made with such a soft voice, demure attitude and such a winning smile that included everybody around them, that Eliot could literally feel the walls that had gone up at Aimee's insult, come crashing down. They were ready to take the nice little Alice White into their fold. She had played the situation in such a way that even if she had insulted Aimee right back, it had been lost in the other parts of her pronouncement. With the group of people going back to their normal, curious selves, only Aimee was left glaring at the two of them, as Eliot expertly guided Parker away to the buffet tables set up at the sides, to get her some punch.

Once they were some distance away, it was all he could do to stop himself from picking her up and swinging her around with the way he was feeling at that moment. The hitter settled for pulling her around to face him and kissing her in a way that would be a hot topic of conversation at Cedar Hill for quite some time to come.

"That was brilliant Parker!... when did you learn to do that?"

"Huh?" came a dazed reply, causing the hitter to grin and press another kiss to the bemused thief's lips before he dragged her to one of the tables set up by the side and went to get the two of them some punch.

Parker figured she must've done something good if she had to go by the way Eliot had reacted... that kiss... wow! It had everything that she'd thought she'd never have with someone and now, unfortunately, Parker couldn't wait to get out of the reunion that she'd been so excited about coming to. That one kiss had completely changed her priorities. If she could, she would drag her hitter out right this moment and make him take her back to their hotel as soon as he could. But Parker, for n=once, knew just how important this was for Eliot. Not only had they come to Cedar Hill to attend the reunion, they'd also come here to see Eliot's sister Molly and her family. With that thought, the huge butterflies that Parker'd had in her stomach before were back with a vengeance.

She knew that Molly and Brian knew everything about Eliot's real job. They would obviously know the truth about her and she wouldn't have to play a character like she was now. But by some twist of personality, Parker was a lot more comfortable being someone else when around people than when she was being herself. It had taken her a long time to bring out the real Parker in front of the team and they were people she had trusted right from day... well not day one, but close enough. Basically, being someone else, gave Parker the freedom to act in ways she herself wouldn't and that, was what had prompted the comeback that had firmly put Aimee Martin in her place not five minutes ago. If she had been introduced to Aimee and others as Parker, she might not have reacted the same way. In her mind's eye, Parker had seen Alice White reacting in such a way when the relationship between her and her boyfriend was under question and without any doubt, had followed her instincts.

Now, at Molly's, she would have to be Parker and no one else in front of Eliot's family... people who had an enormous influence over Eliot and people she definitely did not want to hurt or injure in any way. She would have to be extra careful while she was in Cedar Hill and maybe try and curb her tendency to say whatever came to her mind without even thinking about it. Parker however, had no time to think about anything else, as a couple of ladies who'd been part of the Eliot Spencer fan club came by and stopped at her table.

"Hi... Alice... right? I am Whitney and this is Jennifer..."

Whitney was short and slim, with a mop of dark, straight hair while Jennifer seemed to be the quintessential blonde, blue eyed American beauty

"Hi Whitney... hi Jennifer. It's nice to meet you guys. So... How do you know Eliot?"

"Oh our boyfriends in high school used to be his friends... you know... the football jocks. We were cheerleaders"

"Oh... cool."

There was a slightly awkward silence as no one could figure out what to say next, before Whitney broke the ice

"We... we just wanted to say that we're sorry about Aimee. It's just that..."

"Oh please... don't worry about that. I met Aimee a couple of years ago when I came down with Eliot for something he and our friends had been working on... I know that we're not gonna be getting along all that well. It's fine... no hard feelings."

"Oh Thank you!... it is more than she deserved after the way she treated you. You're nice."

"Thank you...So... what do you guys do?"

"Oh I am an interior designer and Jenny here is an architect..."

"Great... so you work together or for different firms?"

"We work together sometimes... but mostly it's for different firms and clients. It's fun when we get to work with each other..."

The conversation progressed easily from that and the girls were quite curious about Alice and what she did. Upon coming to know that she spent her time working in various charities and used her family money for good causes, they were enchanted by her and declared that they wanted to be friends with her. Parker, while surprised at being able to chat with people so easily, guessed that it was her Alice White persona that made it so easy for her and happily concurred with the ladies and proceeded to exchange phone numbers with them, being careful to give them the number that she used for everyday purposes.

Hardison, being the geek god he was, had given the whole team phones that had four sim cards in each of them. One number was used for normal, everyday purposes, one exclusively for work related things, one for emergencies only and the final one to be used only under extenuating circumstances as it held only one number... that of an as yet unidentified person who only Nate knew about, who could get them to safety if they were ever caught in a situation that none of the others in the team could get them out of or if the others were captured or dead. Parker hoped fervently every time she used her top of the range phone, that she would never have to use that fourth sim card... ever.

She'd been so involved in her thoughts that she almost missed Jennifer's next question

"Huh?... sorry. I was a bit lost in my thoughts... could you repeat that?"

"It's okay Alice... We were just saying that you and Eliot... you guys make a really cute couple. So... how serious is it?"

The casual question sparked something inside Parker and she took quite a few moments to come to terms with what she was feeling

"Uh... Alice?... Sorry if we were being too intrusive. It's okay if you don't wanna answer..."

"Oh no... it's not that guys... I was just... I was just thinking. It's just that... well... this sorta stuff is kinda new to me and I guess I am just getting used to it."

"What do you mean Alice?"

"Well... It's just that... I've never been in love... with anyone before."

Her statement was met with excited squeals from her new friends, who spontaneously got up from their chairs on either side of her and caught her in a tight threeway hug, all the while squealing and jumping in happiness for their brand new girlfriend.

That was how Eliot found his little thief, squished happily in the middle of two women, who couldn't have known her five minutes ago, now jumping up and down squealing in excitement about something. The picture made him pause, thinking about just how much Parker had changed since they'd first a few years ago. Then shaking his head at the thought and thinking just how much she'd managed to change him in the intervening period too, Eliot made his way to the still jumping trio and decided to break their little party before they made away with his girlfriend once and for all

"Hello ladies... you seem to be excited about something..." he said with a small but lady-killer smile that immediately had its desired effect on all three women. It made the two others sigh in appreciation while it made Parker smirk at him.

"Hi Eliot... you probably don't remember us but we're..."

"Of course I remember you beautiful ladies... how could one not?... Whitney Callum and... ummm... yeah... Jennifer Stathford... Am I right?"

The two ladies in question were flabbergasted but highly flattered that Eliot Spencer, football jock, homecoming King and all round golden bad boy of their high school had managed to remember them. Parker knew that Eliot had been able to pick the two names out from their collective peek at the year book before entering the place as well as some discrete looks at their name tags, which, was their usual game plan when it came to grifting. After all, they'd both been coached in grifting enough number of times by one of the best grifters in the world and Sophie had always been a thorough teacher. If pressed, the two of them could probably name each and every body in the yearbook without too much difficulty.

But at that moment, all that mattered was the fact that Eliot was charming the socks off her two new friends and Parker was sinking into the calming pool of normality when there was a slight flicker in the lights before they blacked out for a second and flickered back to life.

Whitney and Jennifer didn't notice anything wrong about the situation other than the flickering lights and fortunately they also didn't notice both Eliot and Parker stiffen up simultaneously while carefully but quickly taking stock of the people in the huge hall, trying to figure out who the target was. An unspoken understanding passed between the two long time partners as they started to case out the whole area, trying to figure out what was going on without making anybody aware of anything untoward happening.

"That was someone punching a hole in the security system of the school... Do you have any idea what this could be about?"

"Yeah I know... and no... I have no ideas at the moment. I think we should case this whole place and make sure that whatever is happening remains behind the scenes."

"Got it. You got any comms on you?"

Eliot silently handed her a small clear plastic ear bud that the thief fit into her ear and pressed on to switch it on.

"Testing..."

"Hear ya..."

Turning to the two women who they'd been talking to, Eliot calmly explained that he and Parker had an important phone call that they had to take and that they would be outside for sometime. Having unobtrusively made their way to the part of the gym that connected to the school building, Eliot pulled Parker to a halt. Dragging her slim body to his in the last second, Eliot pressed a kiss to her lips, her forehead and her hair before he made himself let go of her

"I'll take care of things on the ground level... you take the aerial route. Your overnighter is in the back of the car. It has an extra round of rope, some zip cords and an extra harness. Just... just be careful okay?"

Parker replied with just a squeeze of his hand and a whispered 'I love you' in his ear before she disappeared like a shadow, leaving him reeling from her soft statement. No one except Molly and Mrs. Spencer, and lately Molly's kids, had ever told Eliot Spencer that they loved him. And Eliot was pretty sure that there was a fundamental difference of meaning between the 'I love you's he heard from others and the one that had just rocked his world now. It just reinforced his determination to root out whatever the problem was as soon as possible, so that they could get back to their reunion and family dinner before he could find out exactly what Parker had meant by her little declaration back there.

That in mind, Eliot made his way as unobtrusively as possible to the nearest exit and went around to case the outside of the gym as Parker, equally silent and unobtrusive, donned her rappelling gear and took the fire escape ladder to the roof. Once up there, she could pretty much keep an eye on everything going on in there tapping into the video surveillance system of the school using some of Hardison's back up equipment that Eliot always carried around, and kept Eliot appraised on the situation. Eliot, for once, was thankful that the school was a single story building, as he'd had enough of going up and down staircases to last him a lifetime in the last couple of jobs the team had pulled.

"Parker... anything?"

"Ummm... wait. (sigh) I just wish we had Hardison so that he could just hack into the computer system and give us complete control over every thing in the school"

"Yeah well... he isn't here now. We're gonna have to make do on our own... so tell me, you got anything?"

"Yes I know that... doesn't stop me from wishing for it though. But the two of us together are rather kick-ass you know?... you got two guys coming your way... okay... Russians... I think"

Eliot mumbled something decidedly unflattering about Russians and their fighting techniques before he snuck around a corner and into a closet that Parker had almost missed in her visual sweep of the area. Parker had started noticing their company a lot more since first joining the team. In the beginning, only Eliot had been able to pick out their enemies by fighting styles, weapon choices, stances and other things, but somewhere along the way, Parker had also picked up all the visual and physical clues and was well on her way to being almost half as good as Eliot in a very short period of time.

"Parker?... Can you hack into their comm frequency and listen in?"

A lengthy silence greeted his query

"Umm.. Eliot... This is Parker you're talking to... I am a thief. Thief. you get it?... not a hacker. I am not Hardison. Can't do it... Plus... even if I could, I don't know Russian"

"Jeez Parker... you could've just said that in the beginning. No need for the big lecture..."

Parker kept quiet for the next few seconds as she heard the now familiar sounds of Eliot Spencer doing what he did best... dispatching off people who they did not need standing in their way. Roughly forty-five seconds later, two huge tattoo covered Russians were getting up close and personal with the insides of a very small storage closet in the hallway and Eliot Spencer was on his way to meet the people who were making him work on his one day off.

Meanwhile, Parker, on Eliot's hunch was going through the records of every student from Eliot's batch, who'd agreed to turn up for the reunion.

"Got it! Eliot... There's a Marcus A Stanton, who seems so be so deep in debt with the Russian Mafia that he might never see the light of day. I am pretty sure these guys are after him. There is nobody else that fits the bill here... quite a few people defaulting on loans, some cheating on wifes and husbands... nothing that would bring the mafia out here to get its investment back"

"Okay... I'll take care of the visitors, you get a hold of Stanton and get him to safety if you can... But Parker, please... just be careful"

"You got it"

With that, Parker hurriedly packed up the equipment and strapping the backpack into her back, was off the roof in a few moments. Stowing most of their equipment in another storage closet within easy reach of the gymnasium doors, Parker gave herself a once over, and convinced that she didn't look any worse for the wear, walked back into the gym as if she'd been gone for nothing more than a small bathroom or smoke break. Beelining towards the slightly sweating, nervous, rotund guy she identified correctly as Marcus Stanton, Parker cut through the room swiftly and approached her target.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a tall man in a dark suit closing in on the man she was after and she hurriedly made it to his side and latched an arm around his beefy one. As Marcus stiffened at her touch, Parker quietly but clearly whispered into his ear, looking for all intents and purposes like a woman who was whispering sweet nothings into the ear of her boyfriend, for him to just relax and play along if he wanted to escape the Russian mafia guys that were after him. To her relief, Marcus had enough sense to act naturally and walked along without too much protest when she made to drag him out of the room.

"Okay... so this is the plan. We're gonna get you out of here and into a car. My partner is going to take care of these guys and once we are a safe distance from here, we will let you go. After that, you'll have to work this out yourself. Got it?"

"Y-Yes... who are you? And how do you know all this?"

"That's something that you don't need to know. Just make sure that the guy following us doesn't find out that he's being set up."

As they approached the double doors at one of the exits from the gym, Parker relaxed slightly upon hearing Eliot's voice in her comm, confirming his position behind those doors.

"Okay Marcus... here's the deal. Once we get past the doors, I want you to run as fast as you can to the black SUV that is parked at the spot front and center to the exit. Got that?"

At Marcus' nod of confirmation, Parker casually pushed open the door and pulling the man after her, closed the door behind her immediately, grabbing the car keys from Eliot and sprinting to the car, all in one fluid motion that Marcus Stanton struggled to match. Behind the doors, Eliot readied himself for another little show of technique as a huge, hulking man clad in a dark suit made his way out of the same doors cautiously. The next couple of minutes were a blur of well placed kicks and solid punches, the Russian managing to put up a good fight even though he'd been surprised by Eliot. But as always, two minutes later, a slightly bruised but no worse for the wear Eliot Spencer quietly and unobtrusively got into the idling vehicle, which promptly shot out of the lot, driving away into the night, towards the edge of town, Parker's only problem having been the fact that she hadn't been able to see Eliot take down the bad guy.

Eliot, who'd unfortunately had the experience of Parker's singular style of driving... or rather road hogging, wasn't really looking forward to the next fifteen minutes, but he was at least prepared for what he knew he would be experiencing. Poor Marcus on the other hand, seemed to have no idea what was going on and consequently looked rather green around teh gills five minutes into the ride. Parker, who seemed to be having the time of her life, was actually giggling as she veered into the oncoming vehicles lane to get around a car that had made the mistake of being in front of her on the highway. It had only been chugging along at about 85 miles an hour, a speed that the blonde thief seemed to consider very slow, seeing as the speedometer in Eliot's rental never dipped below the 100 miles per hour mark.

Barely ten minutes later, the SUV fairly screeched into the parking lot of a 24 hour fast food place, a safe distance away from the school building and much of the town. Both Eliot and Parker got out of the car as soon as the vehicle stopped, but had to wait for a shaky and green Marcus till he got his shivering body under control and got down from the car. The man, who'd looked nervous enough at the reunion itself, now looked as if he'd rather have been caught by the Russians than have to sit in another car with the crazy blonde woman who'd saved him from being brutally beaten in return for not making his loan payments on time.

Sitting gingerly in a booth, Marcus was staring at the well dressed couple in front of him, wondering what on earth was going on, while Eliot calmly ordered two cups of coffee on the go for the two of them and a late night special for Marcus.

"Look Marcus... we happened to be in the area and thought that we should help someone who's going up against the Russian mob... simple as that. You owe us nothing for this little trip... nothing that is, other than forgetting that this ever happened. Got it?"

Eliot, who'd been fairly calm through the whole thing, was back in his full hitter mode and fairly growled out the warning at his classmate.

"Now Marcus... What's the name of the guy you owe money to?"

"Wh-... It's Sergey Ivanovich... he's a mob boss for the local mafia. As ruthless as they come.."

Without even reacting to whatever Marcus said, Eliot had pulled a phone out of his jacket and was dialing a number. Seconds later, he spoke to someone in a language Marcus didn't understand and Parker knew was Russian. Two minutes down the line, the phone was back inside his jacket and Eliot indicated to Parker that it was time to go.

Getting up, the couple looked down at the uncomprehending man sitting at the booth with them and Eliot relented just a little bit

"Look man... I spoke to Sergey... he's not such a bad guy. I explained your situation to him and he's agreed to hold off for some time. And also, he's agreed to reduce the rate of interest to what he normally charges people. So you should be out of the woods for at least the next three or four months. That should get you enough cash to pay off your loan properly. If you have problems, here's my number... just gimme me a call and we'll see what can be done."

With that, the hitter slid a card that carried just his name and one mobile phone number on it. The plain card had nothing else to indicate his profession or position or anything else on it. Just a name and a number. By the time Marcus Stanton looked up from staring at the card, the man and woman who'd saved him had vanished and all that was left of them was the money that they'd left for the waitress, covering his share of the bill as well, including a hefty tip. Even their car wasn't in the parking lot anymore. The only thing to suggest that he'd not dreamt the whole thing, was the simple business card in his hand. Holding on to it like it was a lucky charm or something, Marcus Stanton looked to the sky and thanked God for whoever he'd sent to protect him this night... for they'd been nothing less than angels at the amount the two of them had known and been able to accomplish in the span of less than half an hour. The woman had definitely been in a class of her own, but it was the man... he'd spoken to Sergey Ivanovich over the phone for two minutes and the Russian boss, who was renown for his ruthlessness, had complied with whatever terms this man had suggested. It had to be someone of great power and reputation for Sergey to agree to his terms the way he had.

The woman he was sure he'd never seen anywhere before. But the man... the man was quite familiar. And if they'd been at the reunion, it must've been that one of them had been a student of Cedar Hill High. Most probably he would be able to identify the man if he just flipped through the year book or something but then Marcus remembered what he'd said earlier. The line about forgetting the whole thing as if it had never happened. He could do that... if nothing else, he could respect their wishes. He might come to know who his saviors had been, one day, but he wouldn't go looking for them or trying to find out about them.

With the card safely tucked into the inner pocket of his jacket, Marcus ambled back to the fast food place to finish his late night special and make a call for a cab to pick him up.

Five minutes away, Parker was staring at Eliot in an open and frank manner, not bothering to hide the fact that she was staring... a fact that the hitter found vaguely unsettling.

"Watcha staring at darlin'?"

"You..." came the succinct reply, as she clearly enjoyed the way he was squirming under her gaze

"Why?"

"Just so..."

"Come on Parker... tell me why you're starin at me or quit it..."

"So if I tell you why I can keep staring?"

"... Maybe.. So out with it... come on"

"Ok... ok... back off Sparky..."

"Parker..."

The hitter voice held just enough frustration for the little thief to capitulate

"It's just that... We've been working together for almost four years now... and I thought I knew almost everything there was to know about you. Then you just turn around and do something like this and make me feel like... like you're a whole different person. It's just... I don't know weird for me I guess... but in a good way... if you understand what I mean"

The whole thing, was said in such a way, quite hesitatingly, that it sounded nothing like the sure, straight forward Parker he was used to. But this one wasn't bad... just different. A good different. He didn't mind having this Parker along sometimes... as long as the original version took her place most of the time. And he suddenly understood what she was talking about.

"Yeah... I get it. I've felt that way a lot of times about you too... It's a good thing I think..."

"Yeah... I guess..."

A comfortable silence reigned supreme inside the car, as it steadily made its way to the street where Molly and her family lived.

"You know... I never got a chance to dance with you" she suddenly piped up, after having been quiet for almost ten minutes.

"What?"

"I didn't get to dance with you at the reunion. It's probably the most fun part of it... last time I danced with Hardison... when we stole that guy's reunion remember?"

Parker wasn't as oblivious as she liked people to think she was... she wasn't even as oblivious as she'd been a few months ago. So as a result of her newly sharpened observation skills, she spyed Eliot's hands tightening on the steering wheel quite a bit at the mention of Hardison and the dance she'd shared with him earlier. But even with that sort of information, Parker couldn't understand why Eliot would feel angry about something like that. She didn't know whether to ask and make him even more angry before he growled out something to her... or to just let it go. But if she did that she might never get to know what was making him so angry about Hardison and that just wouldn't do.

Busy as she was trying to figure out what to do, Parker could literally feel Eliot relaxing, a small smile lighting up his face as he slowed down considerably to take a right turn into a smaller road, which held the sign 'Welcome to the Bar M' The sight of the sign, coupled with the sight of a house a bit farther down the road, but visible now due to the lack of any buildings in the vicinity, made Eliot's smile grow bigger.

Parker meanwhile, was busy staring at everything and thinking about the sign they'd just driven past. It had been the sign for a ranch... which meant animals... horses. Her thinking processes shut down for a bit before she remembered that Molly and Brian lived on a ranch... then her brain shut down again. This time for a completely different reason. The butterflies she'd had in her stomach during the day, came back with a vengeance and the little thief that felt nothing but pleasure and excitement when she had to jump off of a tall building, felt queasy at the thought of having to meet and get along with Eliot's family.

As the dark SUV rolled to a stop quietly a bit from the long, low ranch house, that in the night, looked really warm and inviting with all the lights on, some light music floating in the air through the open windows and the noise of a generally happy family filtering out into the night air. Parker had never felt so nervous before... and Eliot finally got out of the funk he'd been in since hearing Hardison's name and turned to her.

"Hey... Parker... don't worry. It's gonna be okay."

"How do you know that?"

"Trust me... okay? Molly and Brian will love you. And the kids will probably hug you to death."

"But Eliot... I don't know. What if I make a mistake? What if I say something to hurt them or make them angry or something? I don't want to make this uncomfortable for you... or your family. I think... can I take the car back to the hotel? I could-"

Seeing a nervous rant in the offing, Eliot hurriedly placed a finger on her lips, making her stop talking. Pulling his hand away, he leaned down to press a soft kiss on her lips

"Shh... don't worry. Nothing bad is going to happen. It doesn't matter if you say something wrong. You can just apologize... I am sure that Molly and Brian wouldn't mind anyways. They're quite a relaxed family and I don't think you'll have any trouble whatsoever fitting in. Okay? Now just trust me here Parker. I would never bring you here to meet my family if I didn't think you were going to fit in and be able to have fun."

Parker just sat there for a couple of seconds... taking it all in, before she nodded and leaned across the gear well to press a soft 'thank you' kiss on to the hitter's cheek.

"Thank you Eliot... you don't know just how much that means to me..."

Taking a deep breath, the little thief took off her seat belt and pushed open her door, her neat little kitten heels stepping on to the dusty earth of the Bar M for the first time. Behind her, Eliot was grabbing their overnighters and making his way around the other side of the car to her. With another deep breath, Parker stepped toward the ranch house as she felt Eliot's free hand, for the first time, slip into hers, their fingers intertwining in the most natural way. He gave her hand a squeeze before walking up to the house in three long strides, almost dragging her along with him, his excitement at being back home palpable.

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><p><em><strong>AN: So there it is... second part of Eliot's reunion done. I wanted to put in a lot more details... some more conversations with people at the party, but the fic was kinda running away from me... yeah... not my best work. There's definitely gonna be a part three, featuring Parker meets Molly... finally, which should be up soon.**_

_**So till then, please read and review. Any and every sort of feedback is hugely appreciated.**_

_**Lotsa luv and lebkuchen**_

_**Macybear**_


	14. Fitting right in Chapter 11 part 3

_**A/N: Hi there! I didn't think I would be able to post till after New Year's day... but surprise surprise! Here's what I think should be the last part of this prompt. It could be developed further but I don't plan to go on with it. **_

_**To all the people who have read, reviewed and supported this and other fics in this collection, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Without your support, none of this would've been possible and I would've been just another sad writer in some corner of the universe tapping away at her keyboard. Thank you for everything and I hope to keep bringing you more stories, more convoluted plots, scheming villains, more Team Leverage and a whole lot more of E/P :)**_

_**Here's to a great 2012!... and wi-fi at foodcourts in generic malls that are allowing me to post this for you on the last day of 2011!**_

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><p><strong>Reunion Part 3<strong>

Parker was still not quite enthusiastic about meeting Molly and Brian... the twin kids another matter entirely. She was almost dragging her heels, which didn't really work, as a clearly excited Eliot Spencer was intent on getting to the ranch house as soon as humanly possible, almost yanking her after him by the simple expedient of holding her hand and pulling her along. Their over night bags in one hand, the other hand holding hers, Eliot was the picture of a happy man, the slight grin on his face only serving to express the depth of his feelings on the matter at hand.

They were at the steps which would take them right up to the threshold of the living room of the open plan ranch house. Parker was seconds away from meeting Eliot's only remaining family. She, a world famous thief, who'd never had a stable family or even something resembling one since she'd been eight years old, was going to meet her long time partner and brand new maybe boyfriend's sister and her family.

If there was a situation that could discomfit the normally imperturbable thief, it was this. She was still in two minds about the whole encounter, which was quite clear to the man who'd worked along side her for a little more than four years now. Pulling himself and her to a stop, he made her turn to him

"Look darlin'... this is a good thing. A nice little way for the two of us to just kick back and relax. Look at me..."

As she reluctantly dragged her dove greys back to his, he gave her a small smile and continued

"Are you comfortable around me? Do you like spending time with me?"

At her instantaneous nod of confirmation, his smile widened

"Okay... just think of these people as if they were just like me... extensions of me. You can be around them just like you are around me. No need to be Alice or Shayla or whatever character you've ever been till now. You just need to be... Parker. The Parker I know and..."

He leaned in a little further, kissed her softly, skimmed her jaw with his lips and settled next to her ear

"... love"

Before she had any time to react, he'd gone up the stairs and was dragging her behind him, with a devilish smile on his face that said as loud as words... 'payback'... for her impulsive little declaration back at the school gym.

Smiling as her mood lifted, Parker made to follow Eliot to the doorway, where the hitter seemed to be impatiently waiting for someone to come and open the door. Barely two seconds must've passed since his knuckles rapped on the door frame when the door was flung open from the inside and two small missiles just pelted full tilt at Eliot. While Parker stood by his side, a little astonished at the sheer speed of the proceedings and a little overwhelmed at the enthusiasm showed by what she'd initially assumed were small dogs... well, they turned out to be kids. Small children, not more than 5 or 6 years old. A boy and a girl, almost identically dressed, but with small differences that indicated at their individuality.

"Uncle Elly!" came an excited squeal from the girl before she flung herself at him, fully expecting to be caught and held safely.

It might not have made Parker worried, had the same thing not been happening at virtually the same moment with the boy, who also ran at Eliot and grabbed his other leg. But somehow, by practice or habit, Eliot managed to catch both the children neatly and with one in each arm, their hands wrapped securely around his shoulders and neck, and stood up to face her.

The beaming grin that split his face was something Parker could get used to. There was such a happy and contented expression on his face at that moment, that it made her fingers itch to capture it on camera and save it forever. With no camera to lay her hands on at the moment, Parker had to settle for storing the image in her mind. Her mental camera captured the picture alright, but there was something vastly different about the one she saw in her mind's eye. In that picture too, Eliot had two children, one on each arm, one a girl and the other a boy. But that was where the similarities ended.

The girl in her picture had Eliot's beautiful blue eyes and slightly dark brown silky hair that came down her shoulders in waves. She also had a slightly tough expression on her face, an exact replica of the expression Parker had seen on Eliot's face far too often. Parker was still marveling at just how much the little girl managed to look like Eliot, when the boy squirming at the hitter's shoulder caught her eye. For a second, everything else went blank. Parker couldn't believe what she was seeing... the boy, had big grey eyes and soft flyaway blonde hair, an expression that said 'junior troublemaker' all over his face. The implication of what she was seeing hit Parker and she literally stumbled over nothing as reality caught up with her imagination.

Shaking her head almost unwantedly, not yet ready to banish the image from her mind, Parker shook herself metaphorically, bringing herself back to the present. It just wouldn't do to get caught up in daydreams of Eliot and children that looked like the two of them just after seeing him with his sister's children climbing all over him. After all, she would have to spend at least a couple of hours around Molly and her family before they would be leaving for the night and they had only been here for a minute before she'd lapsed into a daydream.

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><p>Parker wasn't sure whether to like her new self or hate it. Never before had she ever been privy to such daydreams that involved other people. Most of her dreams - both day and the usual ones at night, consisted of her and the various things she liked having in life... mostly art, jewellery, statues... pretty much anything that was deemed valuable, and most commonly, the crate full of cash that they'd found when the team had just started working together. A small, fond smile stretching across her face as she reminisced about those good times, she turned to see Eliot looking at her quizzically. The kids, who seemed done greeting their favorite uncle, also looked very curious about who this crazy lady was, who was staring off into space and smiling. But of course they were kids... and not about to wait for polite social chit chat before asking what they wanted to ask<p>

"Who are you?" the little boy asked from his perch on Eliot's shoulder, as he and his sister tilted their heads, regarding her with an assessing expression

"Are you Uncle Elly's girlfriend?" came the smart question from the girl, right on the heels of her brother's query

Smirking at the nickname that Eliot Spencer, the best retrieval specialist in the world seemed to have neglected mentioning ever before, Parker turned to grin at the two children as she answered in all seriousness.

"I work with your Uncle... Elly. We are partners... and we just decided tonight before coming here that we would like to try dating and see where it goes. So... yeah. As of tonight, I am your Uncle Elly's girlfriend"

Seemingly satisfied with Parker's answer, the little girl extended her small hand in the thief's direction

"Nice to meet you... I am Taylor and this is my younger brother Jason. We're twins but he was born five minutes after me so he's younger" the girl said in a matter of fact manner.

Her expression was still a bit guarded and assessing, as if trying to gauge if Parker was indeed good enough for her Uncle Eliot. Parker spared a glance at the smug, grinning face of her partner before catching hold of the small hand and shaking it solemnly, as if she was meeting an adult for a business meeting, rather than shaking the hand of a pipsqueak princess that was perched on her uncle's shoulder.

"Nice to meet you too Taylor... and you Jason"

That resulted in a quiet little 'Hi' from the younger child, who still seemed a bit shy, unlike his sister who was as bold as brass and reminded Parker a little of herself when she'd been that age. Of course, that had been before the vicious cycle of foster homes, Child Services and orphanages. Back when she'd been a normal little girl, well... as normal as Parker had ever been, she'd been pretty much the same kinda kid that little Taylor here was. Insatiably curious and absolutely unafraid to say things that she thought should be said.

Just as Taylor seemed to be going into lecture mode again, she was distracted by the appearance of two more people, adults this time. Even though there was absolutely no resemblance between the two of them, Parker had no doubts that the woman who was currently hugging the stuffing out of Eliot, kids included, was none other than Molly McCauley nee Spencer.

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><p>Molly was a short, pleasantly round, happy woman whose mane of deep red curls was almost like a beacon, drawing people's eyes to her. Coupled with a sweet face and laughing, blue eyes, that were much lighter than Eliot's, Molly was someone you would love to call a friend, someone who would never let anybody she cared about down. She fairly exuded life and happiness and for one moment, Parker was taken back to the beautiful little day dream she'd been indulging in just a minute ago, and left wondering if she too, could turn into someone like Molly if she found enough courage to build her own family. Because whether anyone said it or not, it was fairly obvious that her family was probably the most important thing in Molly McCauley's life.<p>

Then the short woman made Parker almost cry... It was also fairly obvious that she too was included in that little circle, when, even before any introductions could be performed, Molly turned to her with a huge warm smile on her face, and hugged her tight enough to break a few ribs and said

"It is soooo good to finally meet you. Elly wouldn't stop talking about you guys and Brian and I have been going mad wanting to meet all of you. But I understand how Elly is, and also know that there were some problems with Moreau till now."

Catching herself talking about the one man she hadn't wanted to mention, Molly laughed a little, shaking her head and continued

"What am I going on about?... All that's in the past now and I am so happy that you could make it... And made sure that my stupid brother attended his reunion. Oh shush Eliot... I am talking to your friend here. Don't pay any mind to his little tantrums Parker... he's always like that isn't he?"

Dismissed so callously, Eliot Spencer settled back against the screen door to take it all in, as Molly steered a slightly overwhelmed Parker into the living room. His family... most of the people he valued, respected and... loved in the world were under one roof and there was nothing that could make him happier. Brian caught his eye and nodded a typical hello, as the laconic big man gathered his kids into frying pan sized hands, his gentleness belying his size, nodding at Eliot towards the inside of the house as he himself proceeded inside. Eliot sighed in contentment as he sank into the familiar comfort of the leather couch and drank in the soothing scents of home.

His farmhouse and apartment in the city might be where he lived, but home, to Eliot would always be right here in Tennessee. The ranch, with it's dusty fields, the horses, cattle and the farm equipment and all the warming presence of the ranch house, would always be filed under home in his mind. In his reverie, he'd almost forgotten that Parker was with him tonight and that she'd been fairly kidnapped by Molly, when he heard Molly unrestrained laughter sounding from the kitchen. She and Parker emerged from the room, with various dishes and pans in hand, each one looking and smelling more tempting than the other. Eliot was pleased to see that most of the dishes contained things that were his favorites, mentally thanking Molly for making Parker feel so comfortable so soon, while eying the dining table with unrestrained glee.

In the intervening minutes, Brian, it seemed, had made the children change into their nightclothes and they came back for good nights. After getting their respective goodnight kisses from their mum and dad, Taylor and Jason came towards Eliot, who hugged them tight, promised them that he would be here when they woke up the next morning and kissed them both on their foreheads. Parker, who had been watching the whole thing silently, found herself wishing for such a childhood for herself and maybe her children one day... and promptly shook her head at the fanciful thoughts. But she was surprised, when after getting hugged to death by their Uncle Elly, they proceeded straight to her

"Mommy... can Aunt Parker tuck me in?" came the sleep slurred voice of Taylor which prompted a diminutive 'me too' from Jason.

Molly glanced first at Eliot and then at Parker, looking to see if either was against that particular exercise. Getting a grin from her brother while Parker looked like she'd just been blind-sided by an eighteen wheeler, Molly nodded at the children, who then ran to the blonde woman and dragged her out of the room. She barely had time to squeak out an 'Eliot help me!' before the two children succeeded in pushing her into the hallway and out of sight. Grinning at the sight of his niece and nephew being so comfortable around Parker, Eliot made his way behind them and the two adults spent the next fifteen minutes tucking in and saying goodnight to the children, an endeavor that Parker seemed to be unfamiliar with, but learned quickly.

So fifteen minutes later, when Molly came to inform them that dinner was ready and on the table waiting for them, Parker was able to smile at the sleepy kids and bid them good night in a relaxed and happy manner. But as the adults were about to step out of the room, Taylor's little voice piped up again

"Mommy?... Can I speak to Aunt Parker for a moment?"

Parker, who'd looked as surprised as Molly and Eliot felt, stiffened a bit, but agreed to stay back. As the little girl spied Eliot remaining behind with his partner, she qualified her statement with

"I need to speak with Aunt Parker... alone please?"

Even though they contained a please, the last two words were no less than an order, which Eliot grimaced at but obeyed... something else that his partner had never thought she would see. After this visit, she would never be able to see Eliot Spencer in the same way again. For her, he would forever be the happy man he seemed to be when he was with his family... the man who had no problems being teased by his sister, coddling his niece and nephew and obeyed the imperious orders of a sleepy six year old little girl.

As the hitter stepped out of the room with a comforting and slightly amused smile aimed at her, Parker turned to see the till then sleepy young lady look remarkably awake as she sat up on her bed and beckoned the blonde to her side.

"Come here Aunt Parker..."

Sitting on one side of the twin bed made up with pink colored Disney Princess sheets, Parker looked at the excited little girl, who was smiling conspiratorially at her

"Why do you call me that?"

"What?... Parker?... Isn't that your name?"

"No... not Parker... Aunt..."

"Oh... you're Uncle Elly's girlfriend. So that means that you're gonna marry him and be like mummy and daddy... When you marry Uncle Elly, you'll be our Aunt Parker. That's why I call you that. I call you Aunt so Jason also does. He tried to imitate everything I do..."

The young lady stated with such a sureness of the facts that even Parker found herself wanting to believe that scenario that Taylor had presented her with.

"But that is not what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to ask you if you've got a best friend."

"Umm... I... I am not sure. Why?"

"Well... "

As the little girl in the pink and white hello kitty pajamas looked up at her, Parker could see that she was blushing and knew she was feeling uncomfortable about something.

"You can tell me anything Taylor and I promise that it will stay between us..."

"Pinky swear?"

Parker would've smiled at the small hand holding out it's little finger in front of her if it weren't for the incredibly serious expression on Taylor's face. She relented, wrapping her own slim finger around the little finger of her partner's niece.

"Pinky swear"

"I knew from the beginning that I could trust you, but I had to get a pinky swear just in case you know..."

"I totally understand"

"Okay... You see, I had a best friend named Penny..."

"Had?"

"Y-Yeah... she... her family moved to Montana at the end of last year and since then, nobody has wanted to become my best friend after that."

"Oh honey... don't you have Jason?"

"Yeah... but he's just my stinky little brother. I can't have a boy as a best friend. Plus... Uncle Elly already told Jason that he would be his best friend" she said, stressing on the word 'boy' as if it was a derogatory term... Parker had faint memories of a blonde 6 year old's discussions with her friend about cooties and boy germs

"Well you can... but that's not what you wanted to talk to me about is it?"

"Well yes. I called you to ask if you have a best friend now. If not... I wanted to ask if I could be your best friend"

"Oh... Okay. I do have a best friend now... but I don't see why I can't be your best friend too. If you still want to be my friend that is..."

"You do?... Wait. Who is your best friend?"

"Well... you should know... because it's your Uncle Elly"

"Really? You are best friends with Uncle Elly? How can you be friends with a boy?... But I suppose it is different for you grown ups..."

Laughing at the precocious little six year old's talking, Parker shook her head affectionately and hugged the little girl's body to her a little awkwardly... she had yet to get used to the whole physical contact with other people thing... and let go about three seconds later

"Yes Taylor... It is different for adults. But you don't have to worry about that for... I don't know at least another ten years. For now, I would love to be your best friend. But you should go to sleep now. Or your mommy won't let you play with me and Uncle Elly tomorrow"

"Okay Aunt Parker... Good night"

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><p>Leaving the room with two sleeping children, Parker turned the bend in the hallway to be faced with a softly smiling hitter. That was all she had time to notice before she was pushed against the wall, one hand in her hair while the other went around her tiny waist and pulled her closer to him as Eliot Spencer slanted his mouth on to hers in a slow, deep kiss... the kind she'd only ever seen in the movies and never thought she would ever feel because it involved such a depth of emotion which she'd never thought she could incite in someone.<p>

As she felt the single kiss escalate into a full blown make out session against the wall, Parker pulled her mouth away, still holding on to the last shreds of consciousness

"Eliot.."

Deprived of her lips, his mouth had started journeying down the side of her neck and was now peppering her ear and the cord running down her neck with soft, sucking little kisses that were totally obliterating Parker's ability to form a coherent thought

"El- Oh... Eliot... you have to stop... or we have to leave right now."

That brought the hitter's attentions to an abrupt stop, which was fortunate in it's own way because two seconds later, Molly stepped into their line of vision, clearing her throat, a mischievous gleam in her eyes

"Come on you kids... dinner is gettin cold. You'll have plenty of time for all that once you get to your hotel room for the night. No hanky-panky under my roof if you please..."

The fact that she had said room and not rooms, reached the couple, just as Molly turned around again, in time to see an identical flush make its way up both their faces.

"Ooh Elly... your li'l sis made you blush! You must be losin' your toughness... because I sure ain't losin my touch..."

Cackling at her own joke, Molly made it to the dining room, leaving the blushing couple to recover from their red faces and step in from the hallway after her. Once they all sat down at the smaller dining table in the kitchen, set beautifully for four and almost groaning under the weight of all the scrumptious food that sat on it, Molly, who was sitting in between Parker and Brian, extended her hands to both sides with an expectant expression on her face.

Parker, who had never been part of a traditional family dinner before, was at a loss for what to do. Subtle pointers for Eliot later, she hesitantly extended her hand so that her palm rested on Molly's, and relaxed when she felt the familiar comforting warmth of Eliot's callused fingers wrapping around her other hand. Turning her head slightly, she could see that Eliot's other hand was in Brian's bear like paw and his other paw held Molly's small hand inside it with such gentleness and obvious reverence that Parker's eyes almost teared up at the sight. An intense feeling of longing and need swept through the small blonde, her soul literally aching for such an open and loving connection with another human.

* * *

><p>She and Eliot had just started on the journey that she hoped would someday get her where Molly and Brian were, but it might not even be possible to think about it because of the lives they led. The pressure of their lifestyle, the nature of their jobs, that made committing to anything a physical impossibility and so many other factors that even they didn't know affecting their lives on a daily basis made it a pipe dream to even be contemplating a simple and open relationship that the hitter's sister and brother-in-law seemed to share. While Parker had been off inside her chaotic brain, Molly had gone on to say the traditional blessing and was just finishing when Parker got back to the present.<p>

Still in the throes of the disturbing visions she'd had throughout the evening and the achy feeling she got whenever she saw Molly and Brian together, Parker managed to add on her own little rider to the prayer... a heartfelt wish for some sort of happiness or contentment in life... and promptly felt as if she'd stepped into an alternate reality.

She was Parker after all... she couldn't remember a time in life when she'd felt the need for another person, when she'd depended on someone other than herself. Parker could hardly get over the new feelings that were whirling around her brain and felt oddly relieved as a disconnected thought made itself felt... Hardison telling her that she and sometimes Eliot... were like Spock. Their faces never revealing their inner most thoughts, almost Vulcan in their ability to protect their thoughts and feelings from spilling out in front of others. Of course most of it was for self-protection, but sometimes, you just needed to let it all go and then, it sucked to not be able to express yourself in front of others even when you wanted to.

Shaking off her morbid thoughts, that Eliot was sure to catch on to if she wallowed in them any longer, Parker made an attempt to gauge the flow of the conversation, something she knew she wasn't very skilled at, but managed to make sense of the fact that the three family members were talking about the ranch and how the last year had been for them. It would be hard to participate in a conversation that she could understand exactly nothing about and Parker was just about to tune out again when Molly cut Eliot's question off with an observation of her own

"Now come on Elly, we can talk about all of that stuff later when we aren't boring Parker off into la la land... So tell me honey... how did you find Cedar Hill?"

"Oh... it's nice I suppose. I didn't get to see much of it. We got to the hotel pretty late and had to literally run from there to the high school if we had to make the reunion on time... Eliot's a stickler about being in places on time..."

She couldn't help making a face at the hitter, not noticing the smile that threatened to split his sister's face at the ease with which the blonde was interacting with her brother. The fact that she had no trouble calling him out on his idiosyncrasies and did not seem to be in fear of any retribution, made it all the more heartening for her. Though she was careful not to show it to him, Molly had grown quite worried at her brother's lifestyle. His job didn't do him any favors and his playboy lifestyle with the seemingly endless parade of big chested women who knew nothing about the person he really was.

* * *

><p>Aimee had been the one other woman she had seen her brother be serious about and even as a kid of eight, she had known that Aimee Martin wasn't the right woman for him. Sure, they had shared a lot of common interests but that was where the similarity stopped. And as Molly had known, a second meeting with Aimee years later had proved it conclusively to Eliot Spencer that he had in fact made the right decision all those years ago when he's terminated their relationship. While he had grown as a person in the intervening years, Aimee had stagnated at where she had been in life in their teens and Eliot had known that he would've quickly become bored of the woman, his life with her and maybe even life in general. Molly had, that day, won the bet of her life, getting the twenty dollars she had bet with her brother about seven years back had never been sweeter. But the satisfaction of having Eliot know that he had made the right decision seven years back had been even sweeter.<p>

Now as she looked at Parker and Eliot together, Molly couldn't help but pray that somehow, these two, who were so different from each other but same in so many other ways, would get past all their differences and problems they faced, and stay together in the relationship that, if allowed to grow and mature at its own pace could well prove to be the relationship of a lifetime.

Not many people knew that Eliot Spencer was a certified genius. He had been made to take the test by their school counselor and while no one except the counselor, Eliot and Molly knew the test results, it would suffice to know that it had proven that day, just how special a young man Eliot Spencer was. Had he wanted, he could've easily become anything he wanted. But he'd chosen to protect his family in ways not ordinary man could even begin to contemplate. To do things that Eliot had done in his life, took an extraordinary amount of courage, dedication and sheer disregard for one's own life. So it was normal that Molly wanted someone to be there for her brother when he couldn't... wouldn't take care of himself because he was too busy protecting other people.

Watching Eliot laugh easily at Parker's antics as she described another of their jobs that had gone wrong, complete with sound effects and re-enactions... or as much as she could while sitting on the dining chair, Molly knew in her heart that this... this was what she wanted for her brother. The man who had saved her life countless number of times, the man who'd been, was and would always be her hero, the man who never flinched at responsibility and made sure he did what he had to do even if it took his last breath to do so. He deserved the best from life... and the best for him would be this little blonde woman who seemed to have made a special place in his heart.

If Molly had searched the earth for someone special to be in Eliot's life, Parker wouldn't have even featured on that list. But now that she was here, and Molly could see them together, there was no doubt that this was it... she was it for him and he might be it for Parker too. Maybe... just maybe, things would work out like they were supposed to after all.

Smiling warmly at the woman who Molly was sure she would be seeing at a lot more dinners and yearly visits, the redheaded woman sat back in her chair, her hand slipping into her husband's warm one, their fingers intertwining automatically, and gave him one of her soft, satisfied smiles, getting one back in under a second.

The food was delicious, the cheerful fire making the room comfortably warm, dessert was laid out and the company, comfortably replete with food, drink and the feeling of being with family. Life was good and could only get better... and in their case, more exciting. Especially if they were to include the world renowned thief Parker in their little family circle.

Yes... life was only going to get better and Molly for one, couldn't wait.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: So there it is... The story of Eliot's high school reunion is officially done. This was not how I saw myself finishing this fic, but it is how I am gonna do it. Nothing else I write seems to be working... sorry :(**_

_**Hope you all like it anyways... **_

_**Have a very happy and fulfilling year ahead... drink responsibly at the parties and drive home safe. :)**_

_**Please review any thoughts and ideas... feedback appreciated as much as Parker appreciates a crate full of money. :D**_

_**Lotsa luv and Bubbly (for this time of the year :P)**_

_**Macybear**_


	15. Two many Cooks

_**A/N: Hi there!... Here's another edition of 'His Thief, Her Hitter'... Hope you guys like this one too... Please don't forget to send in your thoughts and ideas for more brand new fics :)**_

_**I of course do not own anything recognizable... sad as it seems, I have only borrowed everything for the time being.**_

_**A big thank you to Hips, for the amazing prompt and sorry for not writing it sooner.. Hope you like it! :)**_

**Prompt by Hips**

**Eliot falls in love with Parker while giving her cooking lessons but later finds out that she already knew how to cook and asked him to teach her only because she wanted to spend time with him.**

**Note : Italized portions denote flashback and are bookended by -Flashback- and -End Flashback- signs.  
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><p>It was a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon and the Leverage team had a rare weekend off this time. Eliot Spencer had taken off to his farmhouse in the outskirts of the city for some R and R, and was hoping to spend some time fixing up his house as well as his precious vegetable garden, both of which he'd had to neglect for almost a month over the team's hectic work schedule.<p>

The hitter was anticipating a calm, relaxing weekend with just him and his gardening tools for company... none of the team even knew where his house was, or so he thought. Plus, Nate and Sophie were going to New York to attend Fashion Week and whet a couple of clients while they were there, Hardison was visiting his Nana over the weekend and Parker... Parker was planning to do something Parker-like. Maybe steal a couple of paintings, rob some museums or whatever... Eliot hadn't really been interested in the blonde thief's weekend plans... she wasn't gonna be in town for the weekend. That's all he registered before he stopped listening.

So he wasn't really expecting anyone to show up in his driveway and was extremely surprised when he heard an SUV rumble up it. Long years of living a life of violence wouldn't let him drop his guard, especially when someone uninvited showed up at his doorstep... of a house which nobody knew existed. So it was armed with a couple of throwing knives and a sturdy handled shovel that the hitter waited for whoever it was to get out of their car.

You could imagine his surprise when the slim, black clad form of the blonde thief slid out of the driver's seat, looking too small a person to be driving such a huge car. The gleeful expression on her face however reminded Eliot of the time when Hardison had been forced to take a ride with Parker and had returned half an hour later, shaky, scared and claiming to have been emotionally scarred for life because of the crazy blonde's driving. It looked as if both the car and the thief were still in a single piece, so that had to count for something.

Eliot dropped the shovel back into the rack he'd picked it up from and advanced on the thief, who was still standing by the big, black car, looking around with her curiosity obvious on her face.

"Parker... Watcha doin' here?"

The petite blonde didn't seem overly affected by Eliot's growly tone and dismissed his question without a second thought

"I like this place... Who would've thought you'd have such nice places just a half hour drive away from the city huh? When did you buy the house Eliot?"

"Dammit Parker!... Wait. Answer me or we're not taking one step toward the door"

Sighing pitifully, Parker turned to face the only man she was so comfortable being around. Of course, Nathan Ford was another one, but he was too much like a parental figure to be counted as a man. Now this... Eliot Spencer was all man and then some. Parker had noticed that alright, right from the beginning but she'd refrained from acting on her impulses, in a very un-Parkerly way, she admitted, but it had seemed like the right thing to do with the principled and highly proper hitter.

The southern gentleman was a deeply ingrained part of Eliot and there was no way he was going to bend or break rules he lived by for so many years just so that he could have a bit of fun on the side. And Parker had still not decided if she wanted anything more from the sexy, southern retrieval specialist. After all, for Parker, just the thought of pursuing a relationship with someone was a major change from the person she'd been before the team... but they hadn't managed to change her so much that she would be contemplating a long term connection... or even feelings like love. Even Sophie, who was like Parker teacher in human emotions and a vocal promoter of the cupids and roses concept, shied away from emotional attachments when it came to anyone other than Nathan Ford.

But thinking about feelings and other uncomfortable things was not why she was here... so the lithe blonde sighed in exaggerated exasperation and in an emotionless monotone, replied, as is she was reciting something incredibly boring from memory

"I was supposed to go to New York for a jewellery exhibit but the organizers did something stupid and now the exhibit's been moved to next month. So I didn't have anything to do for the weekend and I thought that I'd come and see what you do when you're not bashing people's heads in"

"Dammit Parker... you can't just show up at my house and expect me to entertain you... I have plans for the weekend... and I am not going to change them because of you"

The hitter was trying to sound all angry and frustrated, but inside, he was quite surprised that he didn't feel those exact emotions like he'd expected to. What he felt was in fact, a lot like... happiness. But that couldn't be the case... could it?

"That's okay... I'll just help you with whatever it is that you have planned"

Even as she was saying it, Eliot knew that he was going to have absolutely no peace this weekend, and hoping that he got out of this nightmare on Monday alive, in a single piece and able to put two words together to form a coherent sentence. Because as much as he liked the fact that she was here, Eliot knew that the thief wasn't someone you relaxed around... most probably, she would keep him on his toes, running around behind her for the rest of the weekend. There went his peaceful weekend... meant for rest and relaxation, down the drain. Parker meanwhile, being the borderline crazy woman she was, had already walked into his home with her black overnight bag, which she seemed to always have lying around, and was busy finding out exactly what lay behind all the doors that made up his home.

Eliot sighed loudly, looked up at the sky, shook his head and walked inside, to find the only traces of a thief having been inside, the black rubber soled shoes she'd kicked off near the couch. Parker herself was nowhere to be seen or even heard... quite a usual phenomenon when it came to the little thief, and something that Eliot was quite well aware of. But that didn't mean that he had to like the fact that Parker, twenty pounds of crazy, was in his house and going to be spending the weekend there, having full free reign over territory that had been solely his.

This house had been a well thought out business decision, but it was also his home and Eliot had done everything he could to make it feel like one. It was his home... and no one else's. The hitter felt quite proud of the multiple refurbishments and renovations that he had accomplished by himself, all of it done lovingly, by hand, during most of the weekends he spent here when he wasn't working. Now that the house was done to his liking, he was concentrating on the gardens and the paddocks behind the building.

* * *

><p>As Eliot looked around the living room for any sign of where Parker was or what she was up to, he couldn't help but wonder about her presence in his home. The hitter could understand her plans falling through, but what he couldn't wrap his brain around was the fact that she'd chosen his place to invite herself to instead. She could've easily tailed Hardison or made other plans... maybe even stayed in the city for the weekend, but no... she'd chosen to come to his house in the outskirts, a place he'd been quite sure no one in the team knew about. How she knew about his farmhouse was a question for another time... right now, he had to find her and make sure that she knew that this was not one of her museum exhibits and that she was not welcome to explore every nook and cranny of his house, or crawl up into his airvents or jump from the roof, the roof of his barn or the water tower nearby... She was a sorta friend and team mate... but Eliot had limits to how much he could take of Parker's brand of crazy and he was determined to lay down some ground rules before things went outta hand.<p>

Eliot sighed again.. something he always did a lot of around the crazy blonde thief, and prepared for what he knew was going to be a hectic and definitely memorable weekend. Right now, he had to find her before she found his stables... or worse, spooked his horses. If possible, his horses and his little thief would stay completely unaware of each other's existence over the next forty eight hours... yeah right. If that wasn't a pipe dream then he was a 6 foot tall, fast talking, orange soda guzzling hacker.

He'd not even commenced his search for the elusive thief when she dropped out of one of the vents opening out into the kitchen... obviously, she'd made herself completely comfortable in his house and had already finished exploring. Great! Not even five minutes in, and he was already forcing himself to stop contemplating different ways to kill her and dump her body. It didnot feel comfortable having two halves of himself at war about the feelings this woman was capable of awakening in him.

One half of him, the part that was still the old Eliot, the one he was before joining the Leverage team, was completely irritated by her antics and wanted to just get rid of her... anyway possible. And the other half, the half of him that Nate, Sophie, Hardison and Parker had managed to change, was reluctantly drawn to her childish exuberance and innocence... and this wasn't like some schoolboy crush. Eliot had been trying to stop himself for a long time from going down that road, but it seemed as if the first battle the world's best retrieval specialist lost would be one against himself.

"You have a great house Eliot... not what I expected you to like, but... it's nice. Lotsa room in the vents, all the windows have reinforced frames, perfect for hooking up ziplines... and there's even a tunnel from your basement to that big room full of hay somewhere behind the house..."

Okay... now he officially had no idea how he was gonna put up with her for the next forty-eight hours or so without stopping himself from murdering her in cold blood because if there was something the hitter prized more than anything in the world, it was his privacy... something the thief had invaded without even a second thought. Attraction and feelings be damned, he was going to have a tough time pulling through this weekend. But the thief didn't seem to be paying any attention to his reactions... if her continuing comments were to be believed.

"Oh and yeah... nice choice on the safe. It's not something I would get for myself, but it's quite a good model... takes quite a bit of time to crack... all manual with a triple bypass and a secondary failsafe... I think it's been almost a year since I've broken into one of those..."

"Dammit Parker!... If you know what's good for you, you'll know to stay the hell out of my safe... in fact don't even think of goin' into my study again. Not even through the vents. And as long as you're gonna be here, no crawling around in the vents, no hooking up ziplines to my house, no going to the barn or the stables...that's for your own good I'm tellin' you right there... and absolutely no stealing anything. Oh and one more thing... no telling anyone else from the team about this... one second... I am assuming they don't already know... do they?"

The blonde shook her head no silently, as she bit her lip, squirming a bit at the intensity of his gaze. She rarely got this way, a little quiet and slightly guilty at something she'd done... and Eliot knew very well to take advantage of every such opportunity he got. So he laid down the ground rules for her and sneaked in a bit more than he'd been going for.

"Okay... now that you know all the basic stuff, I should also tell you that I like to eat a little earlier when I am here and get to bed soon... So we should be having dinner in about an hour or so-"

He hadn't even finished his sentence when a bright grin split Parker's face

"Ooh... can I help? Can I help?"

The little blonde was literally jumping up and down on the balls of her feet, her earlier sombre mood completely disappearing in her current show of excitement. Eliot almost shuddered at the thought of letting Parker into his kitchen, having her around all the sharp equipment, the open flames on the cooking range. The little thief's propensity for creating disasters of catastrophic proportions from literally nothing, was a well known urban legend among people in their business... though whether it was really an urban legend or not, Eliot didn't really want to find out.

"It's fine Parker... I'll take care of it. You go and... I don't know... just do something... but no stealing, no breaking things, no touching my stuff... and absolutely no hangin' off the rafters... got that?"

The hitter seemed to be thinking about more things he should lay down ground rules about and so missed Parker's eloquent eye roll and only saw her when she put on a sorry little pout.

"But I want to help..." she tried her hand at whining.

And before he could say anything, she tried pushing her point home

"If I'm in the kitchen with you, I won't be doing anything else and you can keep an eye on me"

Finally, to her relief, he actually seemed to be thinking about what she was saying.

Eliot, for his part, was actually considering the merits of her point. Granted, she might be a complete disaster in the kitchen, but atleast he would be there on hand to control her if she, or her handiwork got out of hand. Upon reflection, the hitter found that he was starting to like this idea better and better. In fact, Eliot Spencer was planning to make this another of his rules... Parker was to assist him in the kitchen at all meal times and other times when he needed to cook something. He still wasn't really looking forward to letting Hurricane Parker loose in his precious kitchen, but at least, now he knew that he could be on hand to limit the damage she might cause... plus maybe, she might learn a thing or two in return and he would be able to spend a lot more time around her and probably get to know how her crazy brain worked a little better

"Alright..." he tried his best to sound as if he was not happy with the situation

"But you don't even touch anything I don't tell you to"

She rocked back on the balls of her feet, snapped her hand to her forehead in a smart salute and grinned cheekily at him

"Aye aye Captain!"

Grumbling under his breath but smiling reluctantly at her childish excitement, Eliot made his way into the kitchen.

"Have you ever cooked before?"

It didn't sound like a very difficult or involved question to him... so he was a little puzzled, when she bit her lip and looked a little apologetic before taking a couple of moments to think about it... then she shook her head no, still looking oddly guilty. Eliot had never been able to figure her out, so he just filed it into his brain along with all the other quirky habits she seemed to have and didn't think much about it.

"Right... so we'll start with the basics... What do you wanna have for dinner?"

"Soup!"

She thought a whole minute about answering a straightforward yes or no question and for something that usually involved a bit of thinking for other people, she had an unusual answer ready in a flash... Eliot had to struggle to restrain himself from laughing at the crazy way her brain seemed to work.

"Parker... you can't have soup for dinner..."

"Why?... I like soup... I like your soup a lot. You made it for me once when I was sick... I want to have soup Eliot..."

Again, her pouting and whining like a five year old got the better of a man who'd faced down more than a dozen armed marines single handedly and knocked out every single one of them before pocketing the computer hard drive he'd been sent to retrieve and walking out of a secure facility.

'Sigh...'

" Okay... Soup it is. Now come on..."

Eliot made his way to the kitchen, feeling the starting twinges of a tension headache that he'd developed only around the blonde thief ever in his life. Shaking his head a bit to try and focus on the task ahead, the hitter was forced to smile when he noticed Parker almost bouncing along next to him, her face wreathed in one big smile.

"Parker... I want you to get that pot and fill it with water from the faucet before putting it on the stove. I'll get all the vegetables we're gonna need by then..."

"Okay... Do you want me to fill it up to the top or what?"

"A little more than half should be fine..."

There was something a bit different about her when she was in the kitchen. For example, not half a minute ago, she'd been smiling and jumping about, all excited at the prospect of cooking with him, but now, she was serious, almost sombre in her focus... almost as if she knew the importance and necessity of being focused inside a kitchen. Shaking off his doubts, the hitter returned to the kitchen to find Parker pulling out a cutting board and eying the knife block with undisguised curiosity. Quickly, before she could reach out and pull out a meat cleaver or something, the hitter made his way to her and handed her the basket of fresh veggies he'd brought from his own garden.

"Wash these please... and make sure you get all the dirt out of them... we don't want clods of dirt in our soup right?"

He could see her peering into the basket he'd handed her, looking at some of the vegetables inside as if they were gonna jump out and bite her in the face any minute. He was gonna say something when she slowly and gingerly walked to the deep stone sink at the side and started washing them thoroughly.

"Why do these things have so much dirt on them?... the ones that Nate has in his fridge don't..."

"That's because they're fresh from my garden... I've just started growing all sorts of vegetables and fruits here... The ones that I get for Nate's kitchen are from a supermarket... that's why they're much cleaner"

The hitter went back to chopping the onions and looking in on the stock that was boiling away on one side of the industrial stove. As Parker brought back the cleaned vegetables, he quickly chopped up a large potato, some stalks of celery, a zucchini, a couple of carrots and a baby cabbage. Parker seemed to have forgotten her bid to cook with him and seemed satisfied to just sit in front of him on a bar stool and stare at him chopping or dicing away at the vegetables in front of him. The silence that reigned over the kitchen though, was surprisingly not an uncomfortable one for the two thieves. Eliot was enjoying having someone around to chat with or just simply share the experience of making something delicious with, and Parker seemed to be enjoying sharing it with him.

Once the stock was deemed ready, Eliot surprised himself when he called Parker to come up to the stove and help him... it didn't help his astonishment when she herself seemed very surprised at his summons. Clearly, she hadn't been expecting to have anything to actually do, but she gave in with good grace. Another surprise that was in store for the hitter was that while Parker had accepted that she'd never cooked, she seemed to be extremely competent at following his instruction in the kitchen, asking pertinent questions and taking a genuine interest in the process.

Her honest to goodness real interest in the process had kindled some sort of connection between the two... Eliot found that he could tolerate being around her... rather, he liked being around the blonde thief when she took the 'twenty pounds of crazy' mask down. Because he now knew that it was a mask she wore... a part of her personality that she'd created when she was younger in order to keep herself and her emotions safe. Over the years, playing the part had become so natural for her that she'd forgotten to turn off the crazy even when it wasn't necessary. Somehow, during their session in the kitchen, which had resulted in some seriously delicious soup by the way, the mask had slowly slipped off, showing the hitter more and more of the real Parker... someone he found himself warming up to really fast.

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><p>The real Parker wasn't all that different from the one he saw everyday, but there were a few small but important differences here and there that made her seem totally different to the retrieval specialist. She no longer moved so much... her incessant squirming which seemed to emerge from the fact that she never really felt safe enough, had stopped once she entered his kitchen. The insane amounts of pointless chatter had always quietened down to pertinent questions, intelligent opinions and a lot of comfortable and welcome quiet. This Parker was different but same in ways Eliot found himself liking... a lot. He was almost wishing he could see a lot more of the real Parker when he understood that the only reason she'd come out tonight was because she felt safe enough to do so.<p>

Right at that moment, Eliot made a promise to himself that he would make sure that he brought out the real Parker as much as he could. He would make sure she felt safe enough with him to let herself relax in his presence. That was his goal, and right now the only way he had towards achieving it was to make Parker spend a lot more time in the kitchen with him. He already knew that she was comfortable enough with him while they were cooking, so he decided to go with an already successful formula.

The weekend had gone by in an energetic but mostly calm manner, Eliot's satisfaction at being able to relax in the confines of his own home only broken once during the weekend during an unfortunate encounter between Parker and Saturn, his prize stallion. Both Parker and his horse had needed a lot of TLC after that, Parker more than Saturn. While the thief wasn't usually afraid of anything, even jumping off of some of the tallest buildings in the world without a second thought, she was, somehow, deathly afraid of horses. Eliot had vowed to himself to find the cause for her fear and try to cure her phobia, but it was only an idea at the horizons of his mind. The thought that took up most of his consciousness at that moment had been to make sure that Parker was alright. The way she'd clung to him for the rest of the evening and most of that night, had stayed with him, making him feel warm on the inside, for long weeks after the happening.

But for the most of it, the weekend had gone fairly peacefully and on Monday morning, the thief had left early, claiming that she needed to get to her warehouse before she came to the offices and Eliot had been almost reluctant to let her leave... she hadn't seemed to excited to leave either. But the thought that seemed to dominate both of their minds was that she'd promised to come back and cook with him some more.

That had led to a series of planned and impromptu visits at Eliot's farmhouse and apartment in the city over the next few weeks, each visit ending with a sumptuous meal or dessert that they'd made together, their time in the kitchen facilitating their tries at getting to know each other better. Everything from previous jobs to exes and family or the lack of it had been discussed without any awkwardness over plates of steaming handmade pasta or bowls of freshly made ice cream, cookies, slices of decadent chocolate cakes or slabs of cheesy lasagne...Over the weeks, Eliot found himself falling more and more for the new and improved Parker... she was a lot more real, a lot more down to earth than anyone else he'd ever met and Eliot was beginning to appreciate just how much he liked having her around.

Over the weeks, Eliot had seen more and more of the real Parker that he'd seen the first day they'd started cooking in his kitchen and over that periods of time, she'd been the same way at the offices too. The thief had seemed a lot more comfortable around him and the others and their level of cooperation and understanding on the field had increased multi fold. Nate himself had noticed and been surprised at it, though he'd wisely not said anything more that that.

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><p>And then came the day that changed all of that. It had been this new job they'd taken. Their client was a young man, who'd been supposed to inherit a family based boutique hotel in the city. But his late father's business partner had usurped his shares at the old man's death and was now refusing to hand over the hotel to their client's control. With the power of money and political influence, the man, a J.J Talbot had taken over The Astoria.<p>

The plan had been simple. Go in as replacements in different departments, and get information first. Then according to the extent of damage, the team could assess which plan needed to be followed. But the slight hitch in the plans was that they needed someone on the inside in the kitchens and the perfect person for that would've been Eliot. But in the earlier stages of their plans, Eliot had been needed to infiltrate the security team for Talbot, which he'd done successfully and even gained a position of importance as one of Talbot's personal bodyguards. Now, it would be impossible for him to leave that position for the one that was to be filled in the kitchen.

That was the problem facing the team at that moment as they sat around the dinner table at Nate's. Throughout the discussion, Parker had looked distinctly uncomfortable and had kept glancing at Eliot, as if trying to make a decision about saying something or not. The Eliot of a few weeks ago might've not worried so much as gotten a bit irritated. But this wasn't the same Eliot just as it wasn't the same Parker. So as soon as he found her in the kitchen putting away her plate, he couldn't stop himself from asking

"Is everythin' alright darlin'?"

"Wh-... Why're you asking?"

"You seem a little out of it..."

She stared into his eyes, as if she was trying to convey something to him while at the same time trying to find something out and sighed a bit before she shook her head and walked back to the table where the others were still eating. Standing at teh head of teh table next to Nate, she took a deep breath and said

"I'll do it... I'll take the kitchen job"

"Are you sure you can do it Parker?... It's not gonna be easy"

Nodding her head with a serious expression, she replied

"Yeah... I know... I can do it"

Eliot, who'd been watching this from the small kitchen pitched in

"Yeah... she can... and I'll keep in touch with her over the comm and tell her everything she needs to know... she'll be able to do it. Let her take that job Nate"

The mastermind spent a couple of seconds looking speculatively between Eliot and Parker and seeming to come to some decision, nodded his head and walked off, the meeting apparently closed. Parker again looked at Eliot with a strange, sort of sad expression in her eyes and walked out to the kitchen window and swung herself out, saying just one thing before she left

"Sorry... please don't be mad"

"Wh-..."

Before Eliot could even say anything, she'd swung her way out and was gone. Eliot knew that there was no point in pursuing the thief because no one... literally no one could catch her if she didn't want to be caught and it didn't look as if she was gonna be explaining her cryptic statement to him any time soon. Though he'd learned to compartmentalize his thoughts, Parker had successfully disrupted most of his thought processes and as a result, a very grumpy and irritated hitter was seen at the Astoria the next day, clad in the regulation suit that all the bodyguards wore, with his hair tied back. In the short period of time he'd worked for Talbot, the other security personnel had come to know of his physical prowess and hair trigger temper and knew to keep well out of his way.

Eliot's frustration was compounded by the fact that Parker had showed up for her interview at the kitchens with the head chef almost fifteen minutes early and as a result, he was going to be completely unable to assist her in any way. He was almost sure that Nate's master plan would be crashing and burning any minute when he heard the most mellifluous French he'd heard in a long time through his comms. It seemed as though the others on the team were also struck dumb at what they were hearing, there was no other sound from anyone... pin drop silence over their communication system made it easier for Eliot to listen to what was going on in the kitchen.

For once, Parker seemed to be having no trouble at all in slipping into her role. She was in the kitchen, talking in perfect, flawless French with the executive chef while they waited for a sous chef to show up. Before Eliot could even begin processing what the heck was happening, the chef had come and her interview had started, and all Eliot could do was listen in growing frustration. He was standing next to Talbot as the whale of a man finished his breakfast in a leisurely manner, almost itching to walk out of the suite and make a run for the kitchens so that he could be down there, cooking... or at least helping Parker with her role... which ironically, she didn't seem to be needing.

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><p>The head chef, who seemed to be bored with the process already, mostly one of those chauvinistic men who seemed to populate the food industry, who thought that women had no place in restaurant kitchens. She'd seen so many of them by now that it almost didn't register on her radar. He looked her up and down, like she was something unpleasant he had to deal with and asked her to show him what she could do..<p>

"Chicken Galantine... you have two hours... precisely. I will come by at the end of two hours and if you do not have a perfectly proportioned tasting plate ready for me, you can walk out that door at the back... okay?"

Although she was really tempted to say quite a bit in retaliation, Parker bit her tongue and just nodded as respectfully as she could manage

"Oui Chef..."

"Now what are you standing around for?... Get to it!"

With that, the Michelin starred chef turned on his heel and went back to his office, leaving Parker standing with his sous chef. That was when both Parker and Eliot over the comms realized that he really didn't want to give her the job. The sous chef looked at her with pity in his eyes and proceeded to show her her work station, which was already stocked with all the ingredients she would need. Till the team knew she was alone, they had refrained from saying anything. But now, the second they came to know that she was alone, Hardison had hacked into the camera feed for the kitchen and they were all watching her... except Eliot of course who had to stay with Talbot.

The second the team had heard the chef saying Chicken Galantine, Hardison had looked up the recipe for the dish and they were feeling suitably devastated. The recipe was a very long and complicated one, requiring a lot of finely honed technical skills... it was a recipe Eliot would've reveled in, they weren't all that sure that Parker would even be able to start prep work for it. But even as Hardison and Sophie clamored to get their doubts clarified with Parker, Nate stepped in

"Parker... this is a very complicated recipe...I think we should drop this plan... I mean if it was Eliot he would've managed, but I think you should cut your losses and plant your bugs in the chef's office and leave... as soon as you can"

The thief, who'd been looking at the ingredients in front of her and muttering under her breath for a minute now, almost as if she was checking with some list in her mind, looked up once, to the camera she knew was up in the rafters in front of her, and said one thing clearly before ducking her head again and pulling out bowls of different sizes

"I can do this Nate... just... trust me this once."

If the rest of the team had any objections to her plan, they all knew better than to say anything when Parker sounded the way she did... focused and determined. Eliot, on the other hand was getting more and more puzzled on his end. There was no way someone with literally no culinary training could get so comfortable in a kitchen, that too... trying to cook Chicken Galantine, one of the more complicated chicken recipes in under two hours. The thief had sounded a bit too self assured and confident when she'd said that she could do it.

"Nate... did they give her a recipe?" he tried to talk as softly as he could into his comm... not knowing whether he was trying not to alert Talbot or Parker to his question

"N..No... no. They don't seem to have given her a recipe of any sort..."

The mastermind's reply triggered two very separate reactions from the two retrieval specialists. Parker, in the kitchen almost froze for a full fifteen seconds before resuming her prep work, her expression tense, almost as if she was expecting some sort of angry outburst from someone. Eliot on the other hand stiffened for just a second before his face dropped into a scowl of epic proportions and he almost punched his way out of Talbot's room in the anger that he felt coursing through his body at the way he'd been played by the blonde thief. But he couldn't react in any other way now... without jeopardizing the team's plans. He had another five minutes before he went on a four hour break and he could react all he wanted then. Holding his emotions in with difficulty, Eliot stood still next to Talbot, till his replacement came and relived him for the next four hours. But things were very different the second he'd stepped out of anyone's hearing range. The comm he used as the bodyguard had been taken out and climbing the stairs to the suite Nate had taken under an alias, in long, loping strides made longer by his anger, Eliot reached the rooms in under half a minute and taking a deep breath said clearly into his comm

"Parker... stop whatever it is you're doing. You're not getting anything else done till you answer me..."

Instead of an answer from Parker like he'd been expecting, all he received in return was a chorus of protests from his other team members, all of them clamoring to inform him that Parker had less than necessary time to get her recipe done and that she couldn't afford to stop. But seeing her over the video screen, he could see taht she'd stopped and was looking a bit nervously at the camera, as if waiting for him to lay into her for lying to him about being able to cook.

Nate hadn't become the mastermind by not noticing things... so looking between Eliot and Parker, the older man seemed to come to a decision

"Look Eliot... whatever is the problem between you guys... solve it some other time. We need Parker to concentrate on what she is doing right now... help her if you can but if you're gonna try and stop her or make her lose concentration, I'll have to take your comm..."

Sophie was almost fearful for Nate's health as she could see the hitter trying to rein in his sparking temper. Eliot was standing stiff and still in front of Nate, his fists clenched, his breathing a harsh sound in the comparative silence of the suite and his blue eyes narrowed upon the visage of the older man, before darting to the video screen and back. It took almost a whole minute but gradually, the retrieval specialist began to relax, taking a deep breath, he nodded to Nate, indicating his agreement and turned to face the big video screen on which he could see Parker. She still seemed quite a bit nervous and had stopped working in favor of staring at the camera. Belatedly, Eliot realized that he'd told her to stop working and she wouldn't be aware of everything that was happening up in the suite

"So... Parker... where are we right now?"

"Huh?... Oh right... you want me to... continue?"

The undisguised surprise in her voice made him chuckle a bit, but it also pricked his heart knowing that she expected him to be that rigid with his emotions, unwilling to let go of things or forgive her.

"Yes darlin'... We're gonna make the best Chicken Galantine this sonofab***h has ever had... you with me?"

"All the way chef..."

And he could see her grinning into the camera, her body already fluidly stepping back into action, her hands surely reaching for and measuring various things, pouring, mixing, cutting and chopping. Sophie and Hardison seemed a little disgusted at the sight of Parker carefully de-boning a whole chicken without breaking or tearing the skin, but the amount of respect and other nameless, faceless feelings that Eliot had for the little thief were growing exponentially every second she spent in that kitchen. There was something different about her when she was in a kitchen.. like she was a different person altogether, and Eliot wasn't the only one who noticed.

"She's going at this like a pro... isn't she?" Sophie's voice held the requisite amount of wonder and Eliot couldn't help but smile a bit proudly as he nodded back, not taking his eyes off of her for even a second. They'd started with Eliot following her steps, going over the recipe in his mind to see if she'd missed anything, commenting on whatever he felt needed to be conveyed... but over the course of the process, Parker had become more and more sure of herself and her methods and Eliot only occasionally made small comments or pointed out things now, preferring to watch her go about the recipe her own way. They'd had a small argument over cooking methods in the middle, but things'd been resolved quickly with Nate's intervention.

And so it was at the end of an hour and forty nine minutes, Parker took out the sausages of Chicken Galantine from the blast freezer she'd popped them in to chill them and carefully unwrapping them, cut them into slices of half an inch and arranged them on the platter she'd already prepared. She'd just finished popping her last slice onto the plate when the fat SOB, as Eliot liked to call the head chef, showed up, smirking at her, sure in his assumption that she wouldn't have been able to complete her challenge.

Parker completely enjoyed the look of shock that descended onto his face when faced with the platter of perfectly sliced and beautifully cooked Chicken Galantine. Needless to say, she got the job and had just walked out of the kitchen when she spoke into her comms...

"Hey guys... in case you didn't pay attention, I got the job.."

There was a chorus of 'great job!','awesome' and 'congratulations Parker!' but she couldn't hear the one voice she wanted to... Eliot Spencer was quiet. What she didn't know was that the second she'd finished with her dish, the hitter'd ripped out his comms and walked out of the suite, his progress not stopped by either of his team mates, who'd been busy worrying about the chef's reaction and not noticed him stepping out.

"Thanks... Eliot?.."

She waited for a few seconds for the hitter to check in but heard only a lengthy and uncomfortable silence in return, her team not knowing what to say, and her previous feelings of nervousness and hopelessness returned in full force. Blinking back the unusual tears that threatened to roll down her face, the thief walked blindly out the double doors that marked the exit of the kitchens. Unable to analyze the reason behind the sheer strength of her feelings of sadness and loss, when she should've necessarily been happy at having made it so that their team could proceed to the next stage of the plan, Parker was still fiercely blinking back tears, her normally razor sharp reflexes dulled a bit, when she felt a hand whipping out from the side and pulling out her comm before she could react.

Her body going into instant battle mode, she was about to drop kick whoever it was into tomorrow when she felt a very familiar hand on her arm, pulling her into a recessed doorway.

"Parker's with me... we have some things to talk about... I'll check back in when we're done..."

With that Eliot pocketed Parker's comm and proceeded to pull her out of the corridor and into a service elevator. Once she knew who it was with her, Parker had automatically relaxed, becoming compliant in a way she rarely ever was. Her meek compliance made the hitter shoot a couple of suspicious looks at her but he refrained from saying anything till they had reached their destination, which he'd chosen knowing Parker's ease with rooftops.

Once they reached the roof, the twosome silently trooped over to the ledge where the blonde shook off the band that restricted her hair into a bun and sighed, running her hand through it and finger combing it out.

"You're angry"

It wasn't a question so much as it was a statement. She knew that he was angry... and he totally had a right to be

"No... not really"

She had thought out an array of responses he could give to that statement... and this had definitely not been one. As a result, her reaction was delayed and she just sat there, her mouth opening and closing till she found something to say

"R-Really?... You're not angry?"

"No... I figured you were feeling guilty about the whole thing... I was angry in the beginning... but then I remembered that conversation about lying you had with me the other day... and it all started to make sense to me"

The conversation he referred to had happened on one of her various visits to his farmhouse over the weekends... this one during her last visit there. They'd been eating a lunch of some delicious Lasagne in a companionable silence when she'd suddenly asked him about why lying about something was considered so bad

_-Flashback-  
><em>

_'Eliot... Why do people think lying is bad?'_

_He'd been puzzled by her choice of topic for conversation but had played along, because she seemed to be getting more and more comfortable around him as well as the others in the team and he didn't want to do anything to hinder that progress_

_'Well... people usually lie when they want to hide something. And hiding things can never result in anything good. It will eventually end up hurting someone or the other inevitably...'_

_'But if the lie is to save somebody from being hurt... then?'_

_'Even then, lying about something always makes things very difficult and complicated. To cover that one lie you've told, you'd have to make up a dozen more... If you slip up on even one and the other person comes to know, it would make them feel like you were cheating them'_

_-End Flashback-_

She'd seemed very uncomfortable then, almost squirming in her seat as if she'd found out something that she didn't like or didn't want to know. He hadn't made the connection then, but back while she'd been in the kitchen, he'd thought back to this conversation and made the requisite connections that he'd missed that day.

"I understand that you lied for some purpose... What I don't know is why? You could've just told me that you cooked and we could've gone from there... What was the necessity for all these lies?"

Again, Parker seemed to squirm in place, as if she was very uncomfortable with the way things were going. But this time, he wasn't about to let up... Eliot needed to know what was going on and he wasn't about to back off... even for her sake.

"Parker?..."

"I don't know okay?"

The words seemed to almost burst out of her, her chest heaving with the effort of trying to keep her emotions in check, her eyes sparkling with the tears that remained in them

"What do you mean you don't know?"

It was difficult for the hitter to continue knowing that Parker, the one person on their team who almost never showed her emotions was on the verge of crying about something, but he simply had to know... or else he might never get another opportunity to.

"I don't know okay... I... I just wanted to spend time with you... I didn't want to make you uncomfortable by saying something so when you asked me about cooking I said that I didn't, knowing that if I appeared interested, you will offer to teach me... I just wanted to spend more time with you.. That's all"

Eliot was struck speechless for a second... he couldn't do anything but stare at her. She couldn't be saying what he'd thought he heard. It simply didn't make sense... but she had said it

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I like you, you idiot!... I like you a lot and I wanted to be with you all the tim-"

That was all she said because she found she couldn't say anything else as his lips were in the way. In the space of less than a few seconds, he'd pulled her up to him, wrapped his arms around her slim body and fitted his mouth to hers in a deep, tender kiss.

As his lips separated from her almost a minute later, they only moved apart so that he could feather soft, almost not there kisses all over her jawline, moving towards her ear where she heard his low, sexy voice say

"Well this idiot likes you too babe..."

Her reaction to that was at least as eloquent as his to hers and she stepped up on her tiptoes, capturing his lips in another long kiss as the sounds of yet another day in the city filtered up to them, not really registering in the little world they had for themselves.

They still had a lot of work to do, their con just starting... but inside, both of them knew that whatever this was that existed between them, would still be there when they finished this job and a lot many others... the feelings that had just started to emerge, were definitely of the long lasting variety and there was no way the thief and hitter were planning to give up on this. They would obviously have to work around this... budding relationship. Also, there was the reactions of their team to be taken into account... Nate might have serious objections to them seeing each other because it might affect their work. But Eliot and Parker knew that they could handle everything that the world saw fit to throw at them... because they would be handling everything... together.

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><p><em><strong>AN: So... I hope everyone liked it as much as you seem to have liked the other one shots... Please don't forget to review your thoughts about this and other fics... I love hearing from you guys. And more prompts are always welcome... :)**_

_**Hips, hope this kinda satisfied the prompt that you'd given me... Please review your thoughts :) Would love to hear back from you!**_

_**Keep reading and reviewing,**_

_**Lotsa luv and cookies**_

_**Macybear**_


	16. What families are for

_**A/N: Hi there!... First off, sorry for the long gap. I was quite busy writing up some other stuff... But as I promised, I am back and will try and post updates on a regular schedule. This story is based on an interesting prompt. Thank you Masked Revolt for the amazing idea... I loved writing it... Hope you guys like reading it as much. **_

**Prompt by Masked Revolt**

**so the pair are already dating and Eliot meets the "parents" so to speak, the first visit with Archie now that Parker and he are dating.**

_**I've experimented with a slightly mature and more 'normal' Parker... **_

_**Please send in your thoughts and ideas along with whatever feedback you have... It makes a whole lot of difference :)**_

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><p>The team had just finished what Parker liked to call 'The Last Dam Job'. Only Eliot, other than her, knew that she liked to name all the jobs they pulled and that this one especially, had tickled her funny bone. Just thinking about it set her giggling... Eliot had tried and failed to find anything remotely funny about the juxtaposition of the words 'dam' and 'damn', but that didn't stop her from grinning to herself every time she thought about it.<p>

Walking around the bat cave with Archie, knowing that the job was done, they were all safe, that Archie was still doing fine, lent a brightness to her smile and a spring to her step, something that the older man hadn't failed to notice... nor had her new boyfriend and partner of old, Eliot Spencer.

All of them were busy thanking their partners or rather, substitutes... Eliot was chatting with Quinn while she could see Hardison trying very hard not to damage Chaos... that would probably be done by either Eliot or Quinn, both of whom couldn't stand the other hacker who'd worked with them for commission on this job. Who knew, they might right now be making plans to karate chop and tie the hacker up, put him in a box and ship him to the Arctic Circle. As Parker and Archie passed Eliot and Quinn, the thief was pleased to see her boyfriend glance at her appreciatively and smile that half smile of his that she liked so much... while continuing his chat with the other hitter. It made her momentarily lose track of what she was saying to Archie, but she managed to make it up, hoping that the older thief wouldn't have noticed but she didn't seem to be having too much luck there.

The blonde thief glanced at the man who she thought of as her father from under her lashes, trying to figure out if he'd noticed and was faced with a smirking Archie Leech, his eyebrow arched as the cane he held in his hand tapped smartly against the ground. Blushing for the first time in a long while, Parker tried to change the topic of their conversation, but Archie had already interrupted her

"No reason you should care but I approve of your young man..."

Okay... that was the exact topic she was trying to move away from... and Archie seemed to be aware of it. Though something seemed a bit off... It sounded as if Archie was saying something because it was what he thought she wanted to hear... and not what he felt

"I do care..."

"How does that feel?"

It seemed as if he was really curious about the changes her team had wrought in the Parker he'd known

"Weird... but I think I'm getting used to it"

"Bring him by sometime... I'd like to get to know him"

This wasn't something she'd expected. It had already been more than enough when Archie had told his real daughter that she was his daughter too... Parker had never expected to hear that from the old thief, but this... this was something else. Like every normal dad... or so she'd heard from Sophie, Archie wanted to get to know her boyfriend. She nodded faintly, still trying to process all the sudden changes in the people around her... or was it her that was changing?

While she'd been involved in her thoughts, Eliot had come back from talking to Quinn, the other hitter having disappeared for parts unknown, now that his job was done and he was assured of his check reaching him. Seeing a slightly floundering Parker with Archie, he wanted to get in there to help her, but knew better than to step between the thief and her mentor. But as if was, he was summoned by the older man with an almost imperious wave of his Taser tipped cane

"Young man... I've heard that you are dating my daughter"

There it was... the famous Archie Leech bluntness... the man had gotten into more trouble for being so straightforward than for stealing things in his lifetime. Taking a deep breath, the hitter nodded, his eyes flashing to an embarrassed and blushing Parker by his side

"Hello Archie... nice to see you again... and yes, I am dating Parker"

"See?... Told you I liked your young man... respectful and straight to the point but not falling all over himself like the other kid you have here... he's been giving me a headache calling me 'Sir' all the time"

The old man turned to look at the lowered head of his star student and pseudo daughter and smirking at her embarrassment, patted her head with one hand while he pointed at Eliot with the other... the one holding the cane. While Eliot was happy that Archie was okay with Parker dating him, the hitter wasn't entirely convinced with Archie's reaction. It was as if the older thief was hiding something and not entirely happy about the situation

"You should come by sometime... and bring Parker with you. I would like to introduce my kid here to my family and also get to know you better..."

"Wel-"

"How about this Sunday then?... for lunch?"

The older thief wasn't giving them any opportunity to say no... neither was he allowing them even a moment's space to think about it. Again taking advantage of their stunned silence, the old man continued

"Alright... so it's settled. Sunday afternoon for lunch... I'll be expecting you. Now Parker... I have to get going and I would like you to escort me till my car"

With that the older thief left with Parker, the blonde still trying to wrap her brain around what had just happened, leaving a slightly irritated hitter behind. Eliot had never thought he'd ever get involved with someone in a serious relationship after the Aimee fiasco and so had never even contemplated meeting the parents and all that. But here he was, being summoned by Parker's mentor and almost father, for a getting to know you session. Okay... if that wasn't scary, nothing was.

* * *

><p>Sunday morning came... and uncharacteristically, both Parker and Eliot were wrecks, each though, in their own way. Parker was talking incessantly and swinging off of anything she could find, making an already wired up Eliot even more irritated. The hitter, who usually remained calm and collected about most things, was quite nervous about this meeting with Parker's mentor and father figure. Archie Leech might've been retired from his job as a master thief almost a decade ago, but he was still a very respected man in their business, a man.. with a lot of connections. He could easily make Eliot Spencer's name equal to mud with just one careless swipe of his cane... but that wasn't what was making Eliot all this nervous.<p>

It was the fact that for almost the first time in his life, Eliot Spencer was dating someone seriously, and he was going to meet her... father... in a formal setting. He'd met Aimee's parents formally almost thirteen years ago, when he'd taken her to the senior prom at high school. At that time, he'd been a clueless young high school boy with hope in his heart and a future all mapped out. After that relationship had gone south, he'd had neither the inclination nor the opportunity to be involved with anyone in a manner that so much as even approached seriousness. His social life had devolved to a series of one night stands... evenings filled with shameless flirting, innuendos and carefully constructed back stories, all of them designed to do just one thing... lead to the inevitable ending of the evening... in her bed, on his terms.

Over the years, he'd had a number of these one night only affairs, but he'd never brought any of them to his house. His house... both his apartment in the city and the farmhouse in the outskirts, were his alone. He didn't share them with anyone and certainly never brought one of the numerous dates over. Parker knew of it... hell... she knew almost every single detail of the lives of all her team mates, having tailed them to their homes without their knowledge a whole bunch of times. She'd only been caught tailing Eliot most of the time and even he allowed her to follow him some days when he wasn't mad at her. So when they started dating... or whatever it was that they did, and Eliot had taken her home, she'd been genuinely surprised. And over the next week or so, finally understood that his gesture meant that he was serious about whatever it was that she felt between them.

It had made her happy... well and truly happy, for the first time in almost four years. The last time she'd felt this way was when she'd found herself liking her new job... working as a part of Leverage Associates... as part of a team, which seemed to trust in her and her talents. Before that, she couldn't remember ever feeling this good. Parker had obviously had a hard life, but she was also very adept at finding the little things that made her happy. She might seem crazy to the others, but Parker was good at taking care of herself most of the time... taking care of her needs physically, mentally and emotionally. She'd learned the hard way that depending on others for her survival was a rapid road to disaster. Which was why she'd had so much difficulty letting Eliot take care of her on occasions he deemed necessary... like when she'd broken her ribs banging off the side of a building, when she'd tried to rappel down from the rooftop in extremely high winds during a job the team had been pulling. He'd warned her against it, but in the end, they hadn't had much choice and both Eliot and Parker had ended the descent quite banged up and in a lot of pain.

But the hitter had insisted through the haze of his own pain, pain which he'd absolutely refused to acknowledge by the way, that he had to treat her for her broken ribs as well as concussion. She'd almost unwillingly agreed to spend the night in his guest bedroom... and that, as they say, was the start of a beautiful relationship... or at least they both hoped it was, even if they weren't admitting it to each other or even themselves then.

It had taken them months, just to get used to the fact that they could share their... life, with someone else. That they didn't have to keep up their physical and mental shields around each other, as much as doing so had become almost second nature to them. It had taken a lot of time and quite a bit of trust on their part to even contemplate a relationship of this sort between them. But that had been, by and far the only hiccup... once begun, the thief and hitter had settled astonishingly quickly into the new and improved contours of their relationship. Their innate understanding of each other's moods and actions from working together so closely, benefited their personal life greatly, each of them being able to gauge their partner's emotions with much greater accuracy than in the case of any normal couple.

But it certainly wasn't helping them now, as Parker and Eliot bickered almost continuously the closer it got to the time they were supposed to leave for Archie's house. Right through Eliot's final security checks, their trek from his fourteenth floor apartment, which he'd gotten expressly because Parker had refused to live in an apartment where somebody lived above her, and till the twosome got to his black GMC Topkick, Parker and Eliot had been incessantly arguing about the most inane things. Things that they might never have worried about had they not been going to Archie's... Things like whether she looked thief-like enough to satisfy her mentor while looking 'normal' enough to not scare his daughter... seriously, she'd put quotes on the 'normal' part, something that Eliot might've grinned at another day.

This day however, it got her a five minute lecture about how the two of them were never gonna be 'normal', including the quotes, and how the people who were close to them would just accept them as they were. To say that Parker was pissed, would be an understatement... she might not've been so angry had the hitter not done what he did and locked the doors of the Topkick, leaving her without any means of escaping his lecture. As it was, when they trundled to a stop in front of Archie Leach's perfectly 'normal' suburban home, Parker was very much still protesting her treatment at the hands of her boyfriend and remained stubbornly silent and pouting.

She might have just left the car and proceeded into the house to avoid any more talking, but even the ever so brave and devil may care Parker was a little anxious about today's meeting. She had never brought a boyfriend to meet her family before... heck she'd never brought anyone to meet her family before... rather she herself had never met her so called family yet and it was causing all sorts of things to go muddled inside her head. The world's best thief had never felt so obviously not in control of any situation... ever. And they hadn't even entered the house yet.

If Parker had expected Eliot to try to say something before they left the safety of the car for the uncertainty of Archie's house, it wasn't exactly what happened. The second the hitter put the car into park, his hands reached over the gear well and had expertly unclipped her seat belt, pulling her neatly out of her seat and onto his. Before she could even understand what was happening, Parker was comfortably seated in Eliot's lap, his warm hands wrapped protectively around her waist as her head slid down to nuzzle into the crook of his neck.

"I'm sorry darlin'... I know that today is a big day for you and that you are nervous about meeting Archie's family. I am sorry that I made it all worse... I just... I know how important this is for you and I... I don't know... I've never been in this sorta position before and I don't wanna mess anything up today babe..."

Parker lifted her head up from its position to look into Eliot's deep blue eyes before she leaned forward a bit and softly pressed her lips to his in a tacit apology as well as a silent acceptance of his explanation. Taking a deep breath, the little thief looked over at the house, seeing just how deceptively normal it looked to be the home of one of the world's most famous thieves, and turned back to look into the eyes of her boyfriend. Seeing that little bit of nervousness along with his usual confidence, alertness as well as the insane amounts of love for her he seemed to possess, made her feel a whole lot more confident that anything else. It made the situation seem a lot more real to her than it had just a few seconds before. That Eliot Spencer, the world's best retrieval specialist, was nervous about meeting an old man he could handle with both his hands tied behind his back, just because he was her mentor and that this constituted some sort of a 'meeting the family' ritual that most normal couples had to go through, made the blonde thief feel more secure in his affections, in the strength of their relationship and the bond that had been established between them.

Smiling, the blonde quickly unlocked and opened the car doors, wriggling out of Eliot's arms and pulling him out impatiently in turn. Now that she was sure of herself and the depth of emotion that existed between Eliot and her, Parker found her anxiety and doubts about meeting Archie and his family melting away to nothing. And without the anxiety, she found herself quite literally hopping from foot to foot in excitement. The complete child like exuberance and her mercurial emotions earned her a rare laugh from Eliot as he complied to her insistence and exited the GMC behind her, locking up the car. Still grinning at his girlfriend, Eliot reached for her hand and interlocking her fingers with his, squeezed her hand in silent support as the two of them proceeded down the walkway to the door of the townhouse. Little did the hitter know then, that he was the one who would be requiring the gesture of support before the afternoon ended.

They had scarcely taken a couple of steps in the direction of the house when the door opened to show Archie Leach leaning on his ever present cane, with a slightly nervous looking young lady standing behind him with a couple of small kids milling around in the background. That the smile on the old man's face that had brightened at seeing Parker dimmed quite a bit at noticing him beside her and turned positively stone like when he caught their entwined hands did nothing to make the hitter feel any better. But he was here mainly for Parker's sake... and that thought alone made him not flinch at the arctic cold visible in the older thief's eyes as they settled upon him with all the accuracy of a heat seeking missile.

Eliot knew at that moment that his every move, every breath and every word would be put under the scanner today. Archie was out for his blood, acting like a protective father meeting his daughter's boyfriend for the first time, and Eliot knew that it was going to be a very uncomfortable two or three hours, not considering all the craziness that Parker was going to put them through.

* * *

><p>Once inside the porch, Archie introduced Parker to the rest of his family, leaving Eliot to make his introductions himself. Archie's daughter Melissa and her children Robby and June were understandably nervous and uncomfortable in the beginning. Eliot knew that he had to quickly get the situation under control and proceeded to go at it from the most effective angle he could perceive. Leaving Archie and Parker talking to each other in the porch, Eliot flashed a comforting smile at Archie's daughter before he hunkered down beside the children and began chatting with them. Seeing a Transformers action figure in June's hands, Eliot found his opening<p>

"So... you like Optimus Prime a lot?"

The little girl looked at him quite suspiciously before she nodded her head

"I like Optimus... but my favorite is Bumblebee..."

"Ah... yes. Bumblebee... yeah I like him too. Especially when he's in his car form. I have that same car you know..."

This sentence, which was designed carefully to pull the boy into the conversation, did it's job beautifully. The kid's eyes went wide before he stepped forward, forgetting his shyness and suspicion in his eagerness to know more

"You have a Camaro?... Is it yellow with black racing stripes like in the movies?"

At Eliot's nod of confirmation, the little girl put her tiny hand up on his sleeve, pulling it to get his attention

"Does it also turn into Bumblebee?"

While anyone else might've laughed at the question, Eliot made sure that not a glimpse of humor remained in his face as he answered seriously

"I wish... but no. It is just a car... and not an Autobot. Or even a Decepticon..."

The hitter managed to inject just the right note of disappointment in his voice that had the children hanging onto his every word. Robby nodded in solemn agreement while little June shook her head vehemently

"I wouldn't want a car if it was a Decepticon... I only like Autobots"

Nodding at that, Eliot bent forward a bit and let his voice drop as if imparting a secret of some sort. The kids lapped it all up, their excitement mounting

"Would you like to see Ironhide?"

At the excited nods he got, Eliot sat back on his heels, satisfied at the direction the conversation was taking and pointed at the shiny black Topkick that stood parked outside in the driveway. That the car looked just like the car form of the Autobot in question, right down to the minor details was just the icing on the cake.

While Eliot himself had almost zero interest in the Transformers franchise, his sister's children had become quite crazy about them and in turn, Eliot'd had to learn all the details to keep up with them and maintain their interest whenever he'd had to babysit or visit them during vacations. It was his nephew that had pointed out to Eliot quite proudly that his GMC Topkick looked exactly like Ironhide and his Camaro was identical to Bumblebee. The kids hadn't yet seen the Hummer H2 or they would've known that their uncle had Ratchet too. While his nephews would've been happier if he'd had the complete set, Eliot was satisfied with what he had. He didn't require a Pontiac... and while a Peterbilt would've made his day, the graphics on Optimus Prime were a little bit too obvious for his tastes, which ran more towards being unobtrusive in the background.

But right now, Eliot Spencer was thanking God for his nephews and Archie's grandchildren. With an indulgent grin aimed at Robby and June as they squealed and jumped up and down in excitement, the hitter turned to find a highly amused Melissa, her grateful smile almost making his day.

Melissa Carter nee Leech, was quite dreading this day. She'd heard her dad call some random girl on the street his daughter, and she'd found two seconds later that the girl in question had picked all their pockets and also taken the lollipop from June without their knowledge. While she hadn't asked her father about either the girl or his claim of her being his daughter, Melissa had definitely been having nightmares about this particular situation. Having been divorced from her husband of ten years, she had no one other than Archie in her life now. And if this girl, who appeared to be very close to her father, tried to take her place in Archie's life, she would be left with no one else and nowhere to go.

Melissa had tried her best to make sure that her nervousness didn't show, when she first met the two people who'd shown up on her doorstep. She'd been so absorbed in her assessment of the blonde girl that she'd literally forgotten about the man with her. Now that the girl, who was very weirdly called 'Parker', was chatting with Archie, Mel turned to check the man out only to find him hunkered down to the level of her children. He'd somehow in the last minute or so involved them in a detailed conversation about their newest craze, the Transformers.

As she watched the man effortlessly entertain her children, taking them seriously instead of treating them like all adults did, Melissa knew somehow, without really worrying how, that she could trust this man. She would trust him with her and her children's life if necessary. Once that fact really sank into her brain, she really took a hard look at him. At that moment, he was standing in the sun, with Robby and June, showing them his pickup truck. The sun glinting off of his slightly long brunette locks, coupled with the muscular physique that the Haas work shirt with the t-shirt underneath couldn't really hide, made quite a picture and without even realizing it, Melissa was drawn in. It had been so long since she'd trusted any one, especially a man, that this refreshing change that was brought out by Eliot had caused her to look at him in an entirely new way.

He was handsome but not in the conventional way, obviously quite wealthy but not interested in showing it off. He had this innate confidence and grace that made him look like a jungle cat... to be approached with caution... and deadly if angered. He had the physique of a bodybuilder while knowing how to handle children with care... But the biggest draw for Melissa was the fact that she knew without a shadow of doubt that she could trust him. How she knew it she didn't know, nor did she care... she believed in him and that was all that counted. Even as Melissa stood staring at the man who had come into their lives hardly ten minutes ago and was now so comfortable around her children, she was aware of her father glaring at the man in question. Archie's glare was so strong that had it been possible to kill with a stare, Eliot Spencer would now be lying dead on the pavement beside his car, cut into miniscule pieces. While Melissa had no idea of what it was that was prompting her father to react to Eliot like this, she knew that she still trusted him.

But all these thoughts were wiped out of her brain the next second. Because that second, Eliot turned from helping Robby and June get into his car and looked at Parker, who stood grinning back at him from beside her mentor. The smile that made its way onto his face was as rare as it was beautiful. That instant Melissa knew that Eliot Spencer would never look at another woman that way. He was a one woman man and he'd already found the one that completed him. She also knew without having to think about it that even if other women tried to attract his attention, he would never be unfaithful to Parker. Whether Parker deserved his attention or not, she had it and it was going to stay with her for the rest of their lives. Melissa could only stand in the sidelines and hope that Parker would prove worthy of Eliot's love for and faith in her.

* * *

><p>Inside the pickup truck, June and Robby were busy staring at all the instrument panels in the dashboard while Eliot looked in on them through the open driver's seat door. Idly running her small hands over all the buttons and dials, June turned to the hitter<p>

"Who is the woman with gramps?"

"That.. that is Parker... she's a good friend of your grandfather"

His face screwed up in a grimace, Robby intervened

"How is that possible? Gramps is so old... and that woman is... not as old as gramps definitely"

Chuckling at the infallible logic of the nine year old, Eliot shook his head before answering

"Well... you don't have to be the same age to become friends. Like... like you guys and me. I am definitely not your age... but are we not friends?"

Eliot had a hard time trying to suppress his chuckles as he watched the two kids as they looked him up and down before sharing a glance with each other. Once they'd come to some silent agreement, they turned as one to him and shook their heads yes

"Yes. We'd like it if you were our friend... So... if you're our friend, what do we call you?"

"Well.. you could just call me Eliot... or if it bothers you, you could call me Uncle Eliot... my nephews... who must be Robby's age call me that"

Again with the shared glance, the two children nodded solemnly before Robby extended his hand to Eliot in a serious manner. Understanding that it was something quite important to the young man, Eliot caught the small hand in his, his expression equally serious

"Nice to meet you Uncle Eliot..."

"Nice to meet you too Robby... I am honored to be your friend"

As the young boy beamed at the praise, Eliot turned and raised an eyebrow at the small girl grinning up at him from the driver's seat. Without any warning, she flung her little body at his, her thin arms wrapping around his neck as her muffled voice sounded in his ear

"I like you a lot Uncle Eliot... you are very nice"

"I like you a lot too Bumblebee... wanna go back home now? I think your mum's gettin' worried about you two munchkins..."

Squealing in delight at the nickname, the two children wrapped themselves around Eliot like little monkeys and continued chattering into his ears while he locked up his car and proceeded to walk back into the house.

"Uncle Eliot... if Parker is gramps' friend, how do you know her?"

"Well Bumblebee, Parker is my best friend... just like she is your grandpa's friend, but much better"

"Is that why you came along with her to visit gramps?"

"Yeah... I mean.. Yes."

By then, they'd reached the house and Eliot could see that Archie and Parker had retired to the living room, involved in some very serious discussion while Melissa waited for him and the children at the door. As soon as Eliot entered the house, he could feel that whatever Archie and Parker's discussion was about, it was not going very well.

Handing off the children to their mother as unobtrusively as possible, the hitter made his way to the duo in the living room, his suspicions that the discussion was about him solidifying into fact when their conversation stopped cold as he entered. Both Parker and Archie looked angry, though Parker wasn't glaring at him like Archie was. For her part, the thief seemed to be more than ready to leave, her fight or flight instinct pointing to the flight option for what Eliot was sure was the first time in her personal life.

Parker knew when to leave a fight and run while on the job as the merchandise she was carrying at most times was too valuable to be lost, but in her personal life, Eliot knew that Parker had never, ever quit a fight that came her way. It was how she had grown up... it was what she knew. Stand and fight if you wanted to get your way was what she'd learnt out in the streets and it was how she'd lived her life till now. But now, for the first time, Parker showed all signs of someone wanting to just run away from the disagreement and Eliot knew that this was serious. If he let Parker run now, she would lose whatever contact she had with a chance at having a family and Eliot, more than anyone else, knew what that felt like. It definitely wasn't something the hitter wanted for his thief. Even if she ended up hating him for this, Eliot knew that he had to somehow make her stay and face up to her mentor if she had to continue being the Parker she was... the Parker he loved.

Even as Eliot tried to figure out what he could do to diffuse the situation, the choice was pretty much taken out of his hands as he saw the two children he'd left with their mother not half a minute ago winding their way past him and their grandfather to the lady they now knew to be Parker... their gramps' friend and their new Uncle Eliot's best friend. For them, that was introduction enough... anyone who was good enough to be their gramps' friend and Uncle Eliot's best friend, could also be their friend. Plus, she looked very interesting...

While Robby reached her first, it was the little June hugging her legs and smiling up at the thief that had the blonde returning the little girl's smile. Parker knew that she wasn't the world's best communicator and that she had a very hard time making human connections. But these kids were just too cute and she'd learnt quite a lot from her time with Eliot. So summoning her courage, Parker turned to the small girl still stuck to her legs

"Hi there!... I am Parker... what's your name?"

"I am June Carter... and this is my big brother Robby..."

"Hi Robby... nice to meet you. How old are you?"

'I am nine years old' came the proud reply, causing the thief to grin once again. This time, she glanced at her partner and boyfriend to find him looking at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before. It was as if he was fascinated with the picture that was before his eyes and he was trying to remember each and every facet of it. The beautiful smile gracing his face made her resolve even stronger as Parker tried her best to connect with the children that were already happy to get to know her.

"Uncle Eliot told me you are Gramps' friend..."

Once again glancing at Eliot, Parker nodded down at the young boy, confirming his statement

"Yes... I am. Am I not Archie?"

The old man seemed a bit startled at the comfortable way in which Parker was interacting with the kids... something he would never have expected from the Parker he'd known before. But even he couldn't disagree with her statement and so nodded to his grandchildren... Plus, he wanted to see just how much Parker had changed. That had been the bone of contention between the two thieves before... Archie had felt that being with Leverage Associates and now more recently, this relationship with Eliot, had changed Parker so much that she wasn't the thief she'd been before.

The older thief had felt that being his protege, Parker could've achieved so much more by going solo, like she'd done before and was wasting her time running jobs for this vigilante group that did nothing to further her reputation in the thieving world. In his opinion, working with Leverage Associates and being in a relationship with Eliot had made the extraordinary thief he'd created into a normal woman who had some better than ordinary skills. Parker's vehement denials against his arguments had resulted in flaring tempers before the children and Eliot had interrupted them.

"Yes children... She is my friend... in fact, she's quite a bit more than a friend. Parker is like my daughter, children... That way, she'll become your Aunt Parker. Would you like that?... Would you like having an Aunty?"

The answer to the old man's question came in the form of shouts and yells of happiness from the two children as they each picked their parts of Parker that they wanted to hug in their joy of gaining an Aunt. It took almost a whole minute and a lot of silent encouragement from Eliot, but Parker finally succeeded in hugging the kids back and was surprised at just how good it felt.

"Can we call you Aunt Parker?"

At the blonde's enthusiastic nod, June hugged her legs again and proceeded to climb into her lap, where the little girl settled down comfortably. Robby climbed onto the couch next to them, beckoning Eliot, who was still standing at the doorway, to come and sit with them. As Eliot smiled and made his way to them, he bent down and lifted Robby into his arms, sitting down and settling him comfortably on his lap, like June was situated on Parker's. The little girl was looking up at Parker seriously while Parker was still smiling up at Eliot and the way he could make her feel good in almost any situation.

"Aunt Parker... Is Uncle Eliot your best friend?"

While she had definitely not expected the question, Parker wasted no time in nodding with absolute conviction

"My bestest friend in the whole world..."

The grin she received in return from the hitter was reward in itself but the emotions swirling in the hitters eyes promised her the real reward when they got back home. Just looking into his eyes made the thief feel all hot and bothered and she blushed a bit before winking at him surreptitiously and sitting back to see a slight blush climb his cheeks. It always astounded her the kind of reaction she could get from him... the man who didn't blink before breaking someone's arm or leg if he thought they were going to hurt his team, blushed when she winked at him. It was a tremendous feeling, knowing she held the best retrieval specialist and one of the most feared men in the world in the palm of her hand.

Parker might've spent the rest of the day thinking about her relationship with Eliot, but was distracted by June and Robby, who it seemed, were very interested in getting to know their newest friend. This left Archie and Eliot, because Melissa had retreated to the kitchen to check on the food. Knowing that this opportunity that had been granted to him wouldn't come by easily again, Eliot took a deep breath and turned to the older man

"Archie... Do you have a problem with my dating Parker?"

Eliot had known that he wouldn't be able to get Archie Leech to open up with just one sentence, so he was quite prepared to continue

"Come on Archie... you and I both know why you invited me along with Parker today"

"And why would that be?"

"Look Archie... I respect you as a person as well as a professional... so let's not play games here. You and I both know that you're not happy with this situation. Is it my relationship with Parker that is bothering you or is it her working with Nate, Sophie, Hardison and me?"

Archie had always known that Eliot Spencer was no one's fool and he had expected the hitter to arrive at the right conclusions. So he just nodded his head and said

"Both..."

While nodding his head at the confirmation of his fears, Eliot was at a loss of how to proceed. Looking at Parker, who was happily chatting with the kids gave him the necessary strength of purpose to continue and he turned back to the older thief with determination in his eyes

"I understand your problems with my dating Parker... but why do you not want her to work with the team?"

"When Parker came to me, she was just a normal 10 year old who'd run away from the orphanage and was picking pockets to survive. I taught her everything I knew... I made her what she was... I made her Parker, the best thief in the world."

There was a glint of pride in the old man's eyes as he spoke... it was gone when he turned to Eliot

"She was something extraordinary... the most perfect thief in the world and I'd created her. But ever since she's started working for you and your team, she's lost that edge that made her special... she's just become another thief. Now that she's working for you people, she's even stopped stealing outside of your jobs... and none of your jobs ever become public. People are slowly but surely forgetting that Parker is the best thief in the world."

As the older man spoke, Eliot slowly felt his temper rising. The hitter had known that Archie felt proud of Parker... but it was only today that he'd come to know why. Archie Leech was proud of himself and his achievement. He was proud that he'd created Parker, the perfect thief and unleashed her onto the world... not that Parker was so exceptionally talented at what she did. The fact that Archie saw her as some project of his made the hitter want to live up to his name and beat the stuffing out of the older thief before he controlled himself. The reminders that he was in the man's home, with his daughter and her children present, that Archie was, whether he liked it or not, Parker mentor and father figure, were what kept Eliot from punching the living daylights out of the man in front of him.

"Look Archie... I am not gonna pretend to understand just what the hell it was you were goin on about, but let me tell ya one thing. Parker is an exceptional person. She's what makes the whole package so special... not her skills. Granted that her skills, which you taught her, are pretty extraordinary, but so is she all by herself. I know that I am privileged to have her in my life... and I plan to keep it that way for quite a long time."

"Parker hasn't lost her edge or her skills by working for the team... instead, she's gained so much. She's gained a family, a support group and an emotional understanding of what it means to be part of a team, a family, a group of people who support each other and watch each other's backs. Parker has become so much more than the best thief in the world Archie... you just have to look at her to see that."

While Archie didn't say anything in return, it was plain to Eliot that the older man was finally looking at Parker from a different perspective. Archie could see that the Parker he saw before him now, was very different from the person she had been before. This Parker trusted people, she could interact with strangers, she didn't stand out as a sore thumb in social situations anymore and she appeared more comfortable being in a family atmosphere than he had ever seen her before. Had she been the Parker he had known, she would've simply taken one look at his family and run off, or even scared the children with her strange behavior. But now, he could see her happily chatting with his six year old grand daughter while his grandson appeared completely enamored of her and his other new friend.

While he didn't exactly want to, Archie had to admit that all the changes he saw in Parker were positive and that she was more or less a normal person now, but still possibly retained all her skills that had made her that much extra ordinary.

Eliot knew that even if Archie understood what he'd been trying to convey, the thief would never voice his acceptance. The hitter knew that this was the most he could expect from the older man, and stopped himself from saying anything further.

* * *

><p>This whole life changing conversation had taken less than a total of three minutes to take place and as a result, Melissa had completely missed whatever had happened when she'd been to the kitchen to check on the food. Now, as she returned to call all of them to the table for lunch, Archie's daughter knew that something important had happened, she could feel the change in her father's emotions and the change in the atmosphere itself... Melissa became a bit worried before she caught Eliot giving her a reassuring smile and all her worries melted away.<p>

She knew that Eliot had room for only Parker in his heart... but that didn't mean that Melissa couldn't be his friend... couldn't be one of the people he cared about. It would be more than enough for her, now that she'd understood the depth of Eliot and Parker's feelings for each other. The two of them seemed to be able to hold an entire conversation with their eyes alone... something she herself might not have believed had she not witnessed it herself. Then there was that bone melting kiss that she'd walked in on...

After the meal, which involved copious compliments from all the adults, a demand for recipes from Eliot, who to her surprise turned out to be a gourmet cook, Archie had returned to the living room with the children while Eliot and Parker insisted on remaining behind to help her clear the table. She'd just returned from depositing some dishes in the kitchen to find them locked in what had to be the hottest kiss she'd ever witnessed. They looked like they might've stayed that way had it not been for the lack of air that made them pull apart, albeit extremely reluctantly. She'd just quietly retreated from the dining room before they were aware that she'd walked in on them but there was no way she could wipe the memory of that kiss from her mind for quite some time to come.

It had taken a bit of time for Melissa to get her wayward emotions under control but by the time Eliot and Parker informed the rest of them that they had to leave, she'd been able to face them without blushing too much at the memory that ran on a continuous loop in her brain. While Eliot was busy talking to the kids and Archie, Parker pulled a very surprised Melissa aside, saying that she wanted to talk to her. What the young blonde told her wasn't in the least what she had expected.

"Melissa... I want to thank you for sharing your family with me today. Your children are adorable and I am so happy that I got to know them... and you. I know that you were worried about me and my presence disrupting your lives but I just wanted to tell you that while Archie is very special to me, he will always remain your dad and gramps to your children. I will never get in the way of that... I promise you that."

"But I just hope that you will allow me to come and visit at times... I would love to have a sister... I've never had anyone you see. The only family I've had till now are my team... I would really like it a lot if I had a sister... and being an aunt to kids like June and Robby seems like a lot of fun. So... What do you say?"

While Parker had said whatever she'd wanted to say, she certainly hadn't expected to receive any sort of reaction from the older woman... and certainly not the reaction she got. One second Parker had been standing in front of Melissa making her request and the next, she was being hugged tightly by Archie's daughter, her ribs squeaking at the tightness of the hug, her shoulder becoming wet with the woman's tears. Very slowly and still a bit unsure of herself, Parker put her arms around Melissa and hugged her back. As they drifted out of the hug, Parker found her face being framed by Melissa's hands as the older woman looked at the blonde with tears in her eyes and a wide smile adorning her face.

"Yes... Yes... I would love that. I would also love to have a sister like you Parker. I am sorry for thinking that you would take my place with dad... it's just that with Jackson, my ex-husband gone, I don't really have anyone other Archie in my life. I just didn't want to lose him too... Please try to understand me... I didn't mean to try to keep you away from him. I don't know what it is that you people do... or how you know my father, and I am not going to ask you about it, but I just want you to know that I ma happy you are in his life... and in mine too now."

"I understand Melissa... But I want you to know... that from now on, you have more than Archie in your family... you have me... you have your sister... Parker"

"And me... if you would like that"

Came a very familiar voice from behind them. Both the teary eyed women turned to find a grinning Eliot standing in the doorway. Melissa could hardly say anything, she was so overwhelmed by her emotions that she settled for nodding her head vigorously.

"So it's settled... you have me and Parker looking out for you... and don't you forget that. Anytime, anyplace... whenever, wherever, however you need us, just give us a call and we'll be there to help. Got that?"

As Melissa nodded again, Parker hugged the woman once again

"I wouldn't worry about anything now if I were you... with Eliot Spencer looking out for you, no one can so much as think wrongly about you."

"You're right. I feel very safe when I around the two of you... It's like I am inside Fort Knox or something..."

The resulting laughter shared by Eliot and Parker seemed to hold some sort of secret joke that completely escaped Melissa, but she was content to just be a part of the whole thing. She had a family again, she had friends, she had a new sister and life was looking very good at that moment.

* * *

><p>Fifteen minutes later, Parker and Eliot were back inside his GMC Topkick, making their way back to their apartment. Archie had expressed an interest in having Parker visit them again... and he'd asked Eliot to accompany her. It was then that both Parker and Eliot understood that Archie had given his blessings and it had made both of them feel so much better knowing that her mentor and the closest thing she had to a father, wasn't against their being together.<p>

The entire ride to Eliot's apartment, spanning almost half and hour, was spent in silence, both of them involved in their own thoughts. Eliot had just parked his truck in its customary spot in his garage when Parker turned to him and she had a certain look in her eyes... something that said that Parker had something important she wanted to say and she was worried about his reaction.

"Parker darlin'... Just go ahead and say whatever it is that you wanna tell me... I am sure that whatever the problem is, we can work it out"

"Well... you see... it's not actually a problem. Or at least I think it's not a problem... but then, I've been known to be completely and utterly wrong about things like this and I don't know if I should say this now... or later... or maybe not say it at all but then that is not a proper solution to my problem because I so want to say it today..."

Eliot could see the Parker was nervous about something and going on one of her babbling tangents. There was only one way to stop her when she became like this... but that didn't mean that Eliot couldn't enjoy the process. Still listening to her babble on, Eliot quietly leaned towards her and sealed her lips with his, kissing her in a soft, leisurely manner that had the little thief too relaxing under his touch. By the time Eliot's lips parted from hers almost a minute later, Parker's anxiety was all but gone.

"Parker... I just want you to know one thing before you tell me whatever it was that worried you so much... You are one of the most important people to me in the world, if not the most important. I need you to know that you've become a part of my life, a part of me... so much so that I can't really think of living my life without you now... What I wanna say is... oh dang it all!... This is so difficult... I... I mean... I love you Parker..."

As Eliot turned to the blonde sitting in the seat beside him in the pickup truck, he knew he was dreading her reaction... or from her face, the lack of it. The only sound he heard from the thief for the next minute was one

"Oh!"

But it was such a beautiful sound, especially combined with the expression on her face as she said it. Parker's eyes were filled with tears, shining like the diamonds she so loved to steal, a beautiful smile splitting her face as she fought with her seatbelt. As soon as the seatbelt clip came undone, she was on his lap in an instant, her mouth on his, kissing him in a way she had never kissed him before. There was a freedom to her actions, a sort of abandon that had never been there before. Even when she had been in a relationship with him, there was always a part of her that she kept secret, a part of her that was never open to him and he was aware of it. But today, right at this moment, all the barriers between them had gone down. Parker was accepting him with everything she was and she was giving every part of her to him in return. As the kiss devolved into a series of soft, passionate pecks, Parker wrapped her arms around her hitter's neck and pulling back slightly looked into his deep, blue eyes

"I love you too Eliot... and I also can't think of anyone else I want to spend my life with. I love being with you, I love working with you... and I love knowing that you'll always be there for me."

"That I will baby... always. I don't know what the future holds... but this I can promise you love... I will be there by your side whenever you need me. Whether this relationship between us works out or not, I will still be there for you"

"I know Eliot... And I want you to know that I will also be there for you... always"

"Always my love..."

"Always Eliot.."

And they both knew... that whatever life sent their way, they would be able to deal with everything... because they had each other... and the rest of their lives together.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: So there it is... Another prompt... done.**_

_**Hope you liked it Masked Revolt. **_

_**Please review your thoughts and ideas. I would love to hear from you**_

_**Lotsa luv and cookies**_

_**MB**_


	17. The Great Ice cream Truck Chase

_**A/N: Hi there... sorry I've been absent for quite some time. Life's just been brutally busy... But here's the next in line of prompt based fics... Hope you enjoy :)**_

_**This prompt is also by Masked Revolt. I know there were a lot of other prompts in line before this one, but I just couldn't resist doing this first**_

Prompt by Masked Revolt

Parker has never gotten icecream from an icecream truck... Eliot resolves this during the middle of a mission.

_**So yeah... I loved it when I started to write it... but then I stopped for quite a while in the middle and after coming back, I finished, but I am not very happy with what I've put out. Maybe I'm losing my touch for writing E/P... dunno what... but here's hoping this is just a temporary condition.**_

_**Fingers crossed... :)**_

_**So please review your thoughts and ideas... I would appreciate them more than anything.**_

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><p>This one was just another example of a con going south... and fast. The team at Leverage Associates had experienced so many of them that their cons going according to plan made them feel uncomfortable nowadays. Flying by the seat of their pants had almost become routine for the team of expert thieves... and an ex-insurance agent. That's right... Nate Ford was still maintaining that he wasn't a thief... not really. Even though he was one of the most well known names in the business now, called the Black King by the people who feared facing him and his team, Nate was still of the idea that he wasn't yet a thief by profession.<p>

But then, whether he was a thief or not didn't really affect his propensity for coming up with the most convoluted and at the same time brilliant plans that usually got their marks stuck in webs of their own making, implicating themselves and giving the Leverage team enough opportunity to get what they needed and get out without coming to light. This time, it was an out and out Hardison show, with the mark being the owner of a Dotcom company that was stealing from it's customers and using their credit card and other information illegally. They not only cleared out their victims bank accounts and maxed out their cards, they also sold confidential information to other such companies. This meant that the people they stole from didn't get ripped off once, they got stolen from a bunch of times.

It was just another advantage for them that the mark was an old rival of Hardison's and very interestingly, Chaos' too. For once... or in truth, the second time... or was it the third?.. both the hackers, who were forever butting heads were working together to bring down a common rival. That it was more a matter of vengeance than bringing the mark to justice didn't really feature on anyone's radar. If it made Hardison feel better while simultaneously following one of Nate's master plans, everyone was all for it.

Since the con involved mostly Hardison working his tail off, Nate being point man and Sophie being her amazing grifter self, Parker and Eliot were relegated to support jobs for the time being. Their involvement in the main con would take place only if Hardison's plans A through H were foiled. As it was, they were on plan F... so there was still a major possibility that the thief and hitter would have roles to play that did not involve being lackeys to the hacker and his co-conspirator Chaos.

In one of the lulls, when nobody seemed to be doing anything because they were waiting for the mark to respond by rising to the bait or something, Eliot decided that he'd had enough of being cooped up inside Nate's loft and gathering his jacket and keys, yelled to the rest of them that he was going on a supermarket run. Parker, who was still very curious about the appeal of a supermarket, followed silently, the only reaction from the team to their departure being Hardison's shout to get some more Orange soda.

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><p>As the thief and hitter made their way in Eliot's pick up truck to the nearby supermarket that sold organic produce, Parker sat back in the passenger seat, her feet up on the dashboard as she fiddled with the buttons and dials that dealt with the sound system. In keeping with his reputation for being the southern gentleman of the group, Eliot'd had a flash drive full of country songs on repeat, but Parker felt like listening to something else for the moment and so was fiddling with the radio trying to find a decent station, carefully keeping herself turned away from the hitter, who she knew was glaring at her for having the audacity to touch his radio.<p>

Of course, Eliot's glares were a language in which she was quite fluent by now. The man seemed to have a complete array of glares, scowls and other angry expressions to round out his stellar vocabulary that consisted of one word sentences, usually growled out. Parker knew that though his communication skills didn't make it seem so, Eliot was one of the most intelligent people on the team... she'd seen proof of it enough times as his partner, to believe it without even a shred of doubt. She also knew that he didn't like to advertise the fact and had decided to leave him in peace regarding her revelation.

But right now, he was glaring at her in a way she knew meant that he was being all grumpy about her fiddling with his music and she gave back as good as she got with a tongue poked his way before lounging back in her seat. The only reaction she got for her childish gesture was a small growl before the hitter accelerated a bit harder than was required. The supermarket, it seemed, was quite a bit away from Nate's loft and Parker sighed as buildings and streets blurred as their car passed by them in a hurry.

"Are we there yet?"

Eliot growled again in response and years of experience told Parker that the hitter wasn't in all that great a mood today.

"We're not there yet and if you know what's good for you, you'll sit down and shut up till I park the truck"

If there was anything the blonde thief hated, it was being forced to sit still in a confined space and right now, knowing that she would have to do the exact thing made her feel irritated with herself for wanting to come along with her partner. Deciding to not even give the hitter the satisfaction of having made her do what he wanted, Parker poked her tongue out at him again with a feeling of rebellion and resolutely turned in her seat so that her body was completely facing the passenger side window.

And with that, her only option for entertainment throughout the rest of the ride was reduced to looking out of the window in front of her. Her pride wouldn't allow her to turn back around and even though she was already uncomfortable sitting the way she was, she wouldn't allow herself to show that to the hitter, who she knew was already fighting a grin at her predicament. How she knew that she didn't know... she just did and the blonde refused to waste her time contemplating the whys and hows of knowing her partner well enough to predict his reactions accurately.

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><p>And so it was this way fifteen minutes later that the world's most famous... or rather infamous thief found herself barely restraining a yawn as she gazed out of her window sightlessly, her eyes glassy with the boredom she was feeling, her usually angelic face screwed up in a slight frown as she felt her recently injured back protest at the way she was treating it.<p>

"You'd better sit right Parker... I don't wanna have you straining your muscles before they've had a chance to heal properly..."

"No... I won't... and you can't make me"

"Parker... you know very well that I can make you do it... you won't like it but I'll make you do it if I have to and I'll have to if you keep behaving like a five year old... and don't stick your tongue out again"

Though Eliot had meant it as a threat, Parker couldn't help but notice the slight smile in his voice as well as on his face. The hitter hadn't taken his eyes off the road even for a second, but Parker knew that he'd noticed everything... he always seemed to where she was concerned, and that more than anything else made her turn around in her seat and return to the comfortable position she'd been in before their little argument about their tastes in music.

Eliot Spencer was the unspoken mother bear of the whole team... not that anyone had the guts to call him that, but it didn't stop them from thinking it. He took care of all of them in every way possible, right from making sure they stayed safe during a con to making sure they ate well and at the right times. If it hadn't been for Eliot, Nate might've gone into a drunken stupor and lost control of his team. Sophie might've given up on Nate, Hardison might never have gained the confidence he needed to approach Nate about taking the lead on a con on his own and Parker... well, Parker wouldn't be alive.

There were so many instances that Parker could name off the top of her head when Eliot had been instrumental if not the main reason in keeping her alive and safe. She could remember so many times when he'd taken on droves of gun wielding bad guys single handedly to save her ass from getting caught. Parker could've continued on in the same vein of slightly depressing thoughts had she not spotted something on the road in front and slightly to the right of them.

The object in concern was a white truck, the kind that was used for deliveries, and what had caught Parker's attention was the fact that it seemed to have some sort of a cooling unit on top, some doors on the side that could open outwards and upwards like a flap of some sort. The thief had never seen a truck of that sort in her life and immediately, her brain started to work on all the possible things the truck could be used for and whether the merchandise it carried would be worth taking a look into... in other words, stealing. Without even thinking, she turned to her partner

"Eliot... follow that truck!"

"What?... Which truck?"

"The white one... with the cooling unit on top."

"Parker... Why the hell do you want me to follow _that_ truck?"

"I just... just follow it Eliot. I know it has something inside it... Something worth a lot of money"

Eliot Spencer just snorted in answer

"Yeah right... that would be just so not obvious right?... Stealing stuff and making off in an oh-so-easy to spot ice cream truck. For God's sakes, it's like the script of some cheesy B movie... come on Parker... Even you can do better than that!"

For almost a whole minute, there was no response from Parker's side... enough to make Eliot hazard a glance in her direction, only to find her staring open mouthed at the truck she'd been wanting him to follow. The blasted thing was still in front of them, rush hour traffic having slowed down things on the street enough for Eliot take a good look at it now. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Parker was now looking at the truck with a look that almost spoke of reverence... and pure astonishment. And it only made the hitter worry... not too much about her sanity though, everyone already knew she was slightly, if not completely weird and at the same time scarily brilliant and uncannily observant, but his sanity this time, because he was actually willing to talk this out with her.

"Parker... darlin' what is it?"

"Ice cream... truck?"

"Huh?"

Came the very eloquent reply from the hitter as for the life of him, Eliot couldn't figure out what the heck was going on inside the blonde's head. Slowly, without taking her eyes off the truck, as if it might vanish into thin air if she did, Parker swiveled her head to his side, her lips forming words that were barely audible

"What is an ice cream truck?"

"Huh?"

There it was again. Eliot's eloquence was being tested repeatedly that afternoon, Parker's thought process still a complete mystery to him.

"What. Is. An. Ice cream truck?"

"What do you mean what is an ice cream truck?"

Finally, his brain was able to work enough to form words... not much, half of it just a repetition of her question, but he figured he could be forgiven for being a bit clueless when it came to Parker's brand of logic

"Just what I asked... What is an ice cream truck?... Is it like a truck made of ice cream?... How does it not melt in the sun? Ooh... is it like some super powered ice cream?... like the kind that doesn't melt?"

By now, Parker's brand of logic was well and truly in full flow and Eliot was feeling more and more lost by the second. And the world's best retrieval specialist did not appreciate being made to feel that way.

"Wait... are you tellin me you don't know what an ice cream truck is?... you've never seen one before?"

Parker was still quite determinedly staring at the truck and so answered his questions non verbally... so that was a nod and a head shake... Eliot couldn't help but do some head shaking of his own as he tried to wrap his head around the fact that Parker didn't know what an ice cream truck was. It was quite a small, trivial detail, not something that would be affecting either of their professional lives anytime soon, but Eliot couldn't help but feel as if he had just been given some very deep insight into Parker's childhood and past life. A life which had never contained the small happinesses that most other people almost took for granted.

Eliot's hands tightened on the leather covered steering wheel as the hitter came to a decision. Traffic was just starting to clear up and as a result, the white truck with the rainbow painted in bright colors on its side was already moving away from them... and quite fast. Something about the speed with which the truck was moving sparked something inside Eliot's mind but he resolutely pushed the stray thought away, his decision already made.

"Parker, fasten your seat belt"

The short sentence was spoken in a tone of such finality and determination that it made the blonde thief finally tear her eyes off of the fast departing truck and look at the hitter sitting by her side. There was this look in his eyes then, that made her follow his command, for it was nothing less, without any second thought. The second her seat belt was secure, Parker felt the vehicle almost jerk forward with Eliot's impatience as he jammed his foot onto the accelerator in his haste to catch up with the conspicuous truck.

"What are we doing?"

"We're following the truck"

Came the succinct and completely unhelpful reply, serving only to make her start to lose her patience. This was a rare reversal of roles... Eliot being impulsive and Parker trying to keep them on track... neither was sure if the other recognized it and both of them were sure they weren't going to enlighten the other if they didn't figure it out by themselves

"I knew that. Question is... why?"

That gave the hitter a pause, before he turned in his partner's direction with an incredibly rare, soft smile gracing his handsome visage. The smile did a variety of things to both of them... it softened Eliot in a way that no one except his family perhaps had ever seen him like, it made his blue eyes almost glow with the depth of emotion he was feeling, it made Eliot Spencer look more handsome than he'd ever looked before... and it made Parker feel all warm, tingly and fuzzy inside while it robbed her body of breath and mind of thought.

"Because you've never had ice cream from one..."

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><p>The effect his smile had on her, Parker could've never predicted... hell, she didn't even understand what it was that he'd made her feel... just that she'd never felt like that before and even if she had felt something akin to this sort of confusion ever in her life, it had definitely not been towards someone on the team. That Eliot had the capability to smile that way had made a part of her feel almost cheated at not having seen it for so long and at the same time, another part of her want to grin like a fool at having made him smile like that.<p>

For the moment, Parker was feeling too many things, all of them new and alien to her... and so, she decided not to delve into them too deep for fear of what she would find. Instead, the thief forced herself to act normal... or as normal as she could, and relaxed back into her seat, letting the excitement of a new experience flow into her, covering up all those unfamiliar but at the same time comfortable feelings that were running rampant inside her. Trying to keep herself from working on finding out exactly what it was she felt, Parker knew she had to change the subject, occupy herself in thinking about something else, if she had to weather this ride without any emotional side effects.

"So.. what's the plan?"

".. Plan? What plan?"

"You know... _the_ plan?"

"The plan?... What the heck are you talking about now Parker?"

"Are you trying to tell me you're gonna go steal something without and entry and exit plan?"

"Steal?... What are we stealing?... What the hell Parker?... what exactly is goin' on?"

"Hey!... don't yell at me... you're the one who's following the truck. You tell me what the plan is..."

"Truck?... plan?... Parker for god's sake!... you're not makin any sense. When are you gonna start behaving like a normal person and speak some sense for a change?"

The moment he said it, Eliot knew it was the exact wrong thing to say. And he knew by the way her entire body stiffened beside him that she thought so too. Mentally cursing himself for his stupid temper and runaway tongue, Eliot took one hand off the steering wheel and extended it across the space separating them. Had it been any other person, Eliot wouldn't have done that, but it was Parker.

Both Eliot and Parker knew that they weren't normal and they could never be normal even if they wanted to be... they were just made that way, and in Parker's case, she was made to become that way. Till now, Eliot had called her all sorts of things, he'd called her crazy, he'd even called her weird... but he'd never once told her to act like a normal person, because deep down, Eliot had always known that it was pretty much impossible for any of them to be normal. The hands that fate had dealt them saw to that...

Parker had been feeling so many unfamiliar emotions that afternoon, that she was for the moment out of any emotional strength for reacting to Eliot's words. She couldn't stop herself from stiffening at his harsh comment but other than that, Parker had yet to react in any way to whatever Eliot had said. Though she'd known of Eliot Spencer for more than ten years, known his personally for a little more than four years now, Parker didn't expect him to try to apologize for his words.. and she certainly didn't expect him to do what he did.

Hesitatingly, Eliot extended his hand across the space between the two of them, his fingers almost within touching distance of the little thief, when he stopped himself. It was as if the hitter was coming out of a daze, staring at his hand that had extended out of its own volition to touch Parker. Blinking to clear the fuzziness from his mind, Eliot found himself unknowingly extending his hand once more, this time, the tips of his fingers coming in contact with one thin, pale arm. As his fingers wrapped themselves around it and pulled gently, Eliot couldn't quite hide the apprehension that was filling him, the thought of what he would do if she didn't forgive his words. Though why he gave this occasion so much importance, he wasn't quite ready to accept... even to himself. He knew that he'd thought of Parker as being different from all the others from day one, but he'd never tried to delve into the reasons for why he respected her so much, why he was ready to lay his life on the line for her, even if she hadn't been a part of the team and why, she chose to haunt his rare dreams at night.

Parker, who'd never expected Eliot to touch her, as everyone on them team, everybody who knew them knew that neither of them appreciated being touched unnecessarily. Even when necessary, neither Eliot nor Parker were comfortable with physical contact and they ahd taught everyone to keep it to a bare minimum when around them. So Eliot voluntarily reaching out and touching her to gain her attention, was something extremely new for Parker. But even the feeling of newness that pervaded her couldn't quite hide the warmth of his touch and the tingly, pleasantly fuzzy feeling it produced inside her.

Without pausing to wonder about it, Parker turned, staring at Eliot wide eyes, her dove grey orbs staring into his deep blue ones... and remained staring as what she saw in them rocked her to the core. The amount of naked emotion that the hitter was capable of revealing in his usually guarded eyes was astounding... the sheer quantity of unreserved care, affection and... love revealed in those eyes, coupled with the tacit apology in his touch and gaze made Parker review almost everything she knew about Eliot... and people as a whole.

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><p>The two of them might've remained in their respective positions for much longer, had it not been for the harsh sound of someone honking at them. Belatedly, Eliot realized that he'd completely forgotten that they were in a car, driving... so important had it been for him to correct his mistake with regards to Parker. Back as he was in the real world now, Eliot cursed under his breath and reluctantly took his hand away from Parker's silky soft, smooth skin, his fingers still managing to trail a path over her arm as they meandered to the gear well between them. Returning his attention to the car, which he belatedly realized, was standing still... in the middle of the road, Eliot cursed again, this time slightly louder, before pressing down on the clutch and accelerator pedals and getting them on their way again.<p>

Without turning to her once more, still a bit dazed from what he now knew to be a serious lapse of control on his part, Eliot muttered his apology to Parker

"I'm sorry... shouldn't have said that"

He could feel Parker nodding her acceptance, as she too appeared to be a bit stunned by whatever had happened. As the hitter came up to a stop sign, he suddenly realized that because of that little stunt he'd pulled back there, they'd completely lost sight of the ice cream truck. As the truck rolled past the stop sign, Eliot tried looking in the three different directions that the road went in, hoping to catch a glimpse of it so that he could get back on it's tail.

They both saw it at the same time.

"It's up on the bridge... the expressway"

"Yeah... got it"

Revving up the engine, Eliot Spencer was back in the chase. The truck may be almost a couple of miles ahead of him, and moving fast, but Eliot was sure that with some nifty moves that he'd learned in his time as a engineer for a Nascar team, he would be on its tail in no time. But then there was the issue of the truck itself. Before, he hadn't been so serious about it and hadn't paid too much attention to how the truck moved. But now that he was after it, he could see that the ice cream truck was moving way too fast, and very much in a manner that would be useful to evade any pursuit. Without even knowing that he was doing it, Eliot accelerated and changed lanes, his mind already grappling with the problem of the runaway ice cream truck

"Uh... I'm not very sure about this... but isn't that ice cream truck going awfully fast?"

"Yes darlin'... somethin's not right here and I'm gonna find out what"

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><p>And so it went. Within five minutes of his beginning the pursuit in earnest, Eliot had his pickup truck right on the other truck's tail. But it seemed that the other driver had recognized the fact that he was being followed. Then started the real chase... and to Parker, who was enjoying it all from the front row, it seemed so much like one of the chases that she'd watched a number of times in all the action movies she loved. She'd managed to remain quiet for most of it as she thought there was no way Eliot would've tolerated her yelling him any encouragement without throwing her out of his truck.<p>

The two vehicles were now neck and neck, Parker almost being able to feel the animosity between the two drivers who'd probably never even seen each other

"Shit!... Parker call Nate... That's Jimmy Palermo"

"Who's that?"

Eliot refrained from frowning as he saw that she was indeed dialing Hardison even before she'd asked the question

"It's a guy I know... from the Thirty-first street gang... and they don't deal in anything small"

Parker waited with the phone which Hardison had all of them equipped with, in front of her face. She'd already called Nate and she was now trying to reach Sophie

"Both Nate and Sophie aren't answering their phones Eliot.. and Hardison won't answer now because he and Chaos are after that other guy"

Slightly frustrated at the situation, Eliot dragged a hand through his hair roughly, hitting the steering wheel with the heel of his hand before muttering a string of curses under his breath

"Okay. So we don't have info... no backup. Sounds like a good plan. Parker... listen carefully."

At her serious nod, he continued

"I don't want you to leave the car... under any circumstances. Got it?"

"Bu-"

"Under. No. Circumstance"

"O-Okay..."

Once the vehicles turned down a slightly deserted street, Eliot was ready to move in. He'd made the other driver panic and move away from his set route, making him get out of the heavily populated roads into the emptier but more deserted areas. And right now, it was time to find out once and for all, just what the heck was going on. With a small burst of speed, Eliot's truck raced ahead from behind to the right of the ice cream truck, and once his truck had completely cleared the other vehicle, Eliot snapped the steering wheel towards the left, simultaneously pulling on his parking brake, making his truck go into a screaming quarter turn and come to a stop perpendicular to the oncoming vehicle. His truck had completely blocked the rather small road and the driver of the other truck had no option other than to stomp on his brakes if he didn't want to end up plastered to the hood of Eliot's truck himself.

As soon as the ice cream truck came to a stop, Eliot was already at the driver's side door, yanking it open and pulling out a slightly shaken man who Parker, from her position inside Eliot's truck, thought looked exactly like a bad guy should. Parker watched as without even giving the guy a chance to open his mouth, Eliot had with just a kick to the stomach and a chop to the back of the head, taken the man down in mere seconds. But Eliot himself had no time to reflect on his technique as three more men started out of the back of the truck, each of them great hulking giants, almost 6 feet tall. And right from the way they moved, Eliot could tell that they were ex-marines and made himself ready for what he knew would be an all out, every man for himself, down and dirty fight.

Well, it would've been at least... had two of them men suddenly not pitched headlong into the asphalt. Standing behind them was a grinning Parker, holding her taser like a revolver and blowing off imaginary smoke off of it. The remaining bad guy was dispatched off soon enough in an exemplary show of skills by Eliot and Parker and he left them lying unconscious on the road as they went to the rear of the truck to find out just what was so important that they needed three half-giants guarding it in transit.

Eliot could almost feel Parker vibrating in excitement as he knew her brain went through the various options for what could be inside the truck. He could see her eyes light up at the thought of having another crate of money inside... and shaking his head, chuckled at the thought, realizing that he seemed to know her too well for his own good.

"I don't think it's another crate of money inside Parker..."

"You don't know that... there could be one inside"

After a moment of thought, Eliot inclined his head, letting her have the point, not wanting to burst her bubble quite yet.

"Okay... so let's get this done with."

Eliot took hold of the door handle and with a short grunt, had the heavy rear doors open. He moved out of the way just in time for Parker to peep in curiously. Both the thief and the hitter stood in front of the open rear doors of the van, looking into the cargo loaded into the back of the van... and for almost a whole minute, there was no sound from either of them. Finally, Parker managed to rouse herself from her stupor

"What is this?"

"I have no idea..."

The thief and hitter were standing in front of an almost empty rear side of the ice cream truck. There was nothing in the truck with the exception of a rectangular metal box mounted on a plexiglass stand in the middle.

"Do you wanna open it and see?"

"I don't know... it could be.."

"Oh come on.. we can't find out what's in it if we don't open it..."

And before Eliot could make any objections, Parker was already inside the truck and running her hands along the seams of the box. Without so much as a word, she proceeded to lift the top half of the box away, sighing in complete and absolute disappointment when she saw what was inside. Pushing the top half of the box out of her way, Parker deftly pushed her fingers into the foam lining and pulled out a small plastic coated object from inside it.

"It's a flash drive of some kind..."

The disappointment heavy in her voice was kinda hard to miss as Eliot tried to keep himself from smiling at her in amusement.

"Yeah well... it can't all be gold and diamonds all the time. You'd better bring that with you... Hardison'll be able to do what he wants with it..."

"Well... I don't mind money and art pieces once in a while... but as you said... it's gold and diamonds where it's at you know..."

Parker was still lecturing him about the commodities market when they got back into the truck and she managed to continue all the way to the supermarket. Of course, when she saw what the supermarket he liked to patronize was like, Parker completely lost her train of thought. The row filled with cookies and other bakery products almost sent her in raptures of delight and had Eliot shaking his head in resigned defeat as he knew, now that she'd discovered the charms of a supermarket, his shopping outings would never be the same again. He'd have to choose something else, if he wanted to spend some time just relaxing... because relaxing through shopping was out once Parker was in the scene.

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><p>As the thief and hitter returned to the loft, absolutely loaded with grocery bags, they found the team pretty much the same way they'd left it. The only change that seemed to have taken place while they'd been out having their daily dose of adventure was the fact that Sophie seemed to have drifted off, Nate had retreated to the bar and Hardison and Chaos were still bickering like five year olds... yeah. So not much had changed.<p>

As Eliot put all their purchases away and Parker sat on the counter swinging her feet while watching him, Eliot realized that after all that they'd been through that day, he hadn't once felt irritated at her attitude or snapped at her about it. The revelation wasn't all that astonishing, considering the fact that he already had a glimmer of an idea about the depth of his feelings when it came to the little thief in front of him. As he stood up contemplating how to deal with the situation he now found himself in, he could see Parker observing him quite seriously from her position on the counter. As uncannily perceptive as she was, Eliot knew that Parker didn't quite have a handle on human emotions yet and he'd have to tread very, very carefully if something was to come out of this.

Parker, for her part, had also been considering her afternoon... or particularly, the various different feelings that were running amok inside her due to the events of the day. Try as she might, the thief found that she couldn't dismiss her emotions or the ones she'd witnessed inside Eliot's eyes all that easily. Something had changed... something inside her had changed. And from what she could see of Eliot, something inside him seemed to have changed too and she knew that he was jsut becoming aware of the fact. That she could read him so easily and knew that he could do the same of her scared her a bit... but not as much as she thought it would. It was this, that made her think that maybe... just maybe, they might be able to make this, whatever it was, work. Making a mental note to talk to Sophie about this at the next possible occasion, Parker returned to watching Eliot as he went about his tasks in the kitchen.

The two of them hadn't spoken one word since their return, but they found that they didn't really need words to communicate now. Parker had just jumped down from the counter when Hardison came into the kitchen, looking, as always for Orange soda

"Hey... did you guys get more Orange Soda?... This job's gettin' a bit brutal and I'mma need my strength for it..."

"Yeah Hardison... check the fridge..."

"Sweet... So Parker... I was just thinkin... we might need to get started on a plan to get you in and out of Orcom... There's this flash drive that has all of Myers' sensitive data about his new project for the Israeli Government on it... we're gonna be needing it if we need to talk trade with him"

Parker thought for a moment before asking

"Is it like a small black flash drive with the Omron Corp logo on it in green and Jackson Myers' name on it on the other?"

Hardison, who'd already stepped out of the kitchen to make his way back to his office, came almost running back

"Yeah!... How did you know?"

Without too much fanfare, Parker pulled the flash drive out of her pocket and handed it to the flabbergasted Hacker, as if she was used to anticipating his needs and producing whatever he wanted like magic. It just so happened that while Hardison was still gaping at the flash drive on Parker's hand, Chaos, who'd gotten thirsty, walked in and proceeded to duplicate Hardison's actions at the sight of the very thing they'd just been wondering how to get.

Needless to say, Nate's loft was filled with the evil cackling of two extremely happy hackers who were already planning their next moves. Nate and Sophie had been informed of the sudden change in plans and to their credit, they'd acted as if things like this happened everyday. Not that either Parker or Eliot cared too much what any of them thought. It was the fact that the job got done, their clients got their money back, they got paid and no one got hurt that was important.

"So... now that the peanut gallery has the flash drive, they won't be needing us... So you wanna go grab an ice cream?"

He asked in a slightly hesitant tone, his eyes wary but projecting amusement at the choice of their outing

"From an ice cream truck?"

Eliot had to laugh at that and Parker found that she liked it when he laughed... and she liked making him laugh... she liked it a lot. Wrapping an arm around his, Parker pulled the keys to his truck off the peg by the refrigerator and dangling it in front of his nose, said

"Come on... I'm driving this time"

Flashes of Hardison's panicked voice and shaking body came into Eliot's mind and without even thinking about it, his hand was out in a flash, grabbing hers along with the keys

"Oh no you don't... My truck, my rules. I drive..."

For a second, Parker seemed a bit put out... but then she straightened and smiled, making his brain go 'Uh Oh..' because Parker smiling like that never meant anything good. The hitter had no time to think anything more because the next second, Parker had stepped up to him, leaned up and pressed her lips to his in a soft kiss.

Eliot felt everything in his body and mind come to a screeching halt. There was no room for any thought as he found himself reacting to her mindlessly. The second after her soft, cherry flavored lips touched his, he was kissing her back. It was a soft, almost tentative, chaste kiss, but a kiss nonetheless and it's effect on both of them was far more pronounced than they'd expected.

Parker didn't know what she'd been expecting when she'd given in to her impulse to kiss Eliot... but she knew that she couldn't have expected this because she hadn't known that a simple kiss could make her feel that way. The blonde thief wouldn't have minded spending an entire afternoon that way but the small thought of icecream and driving Eliot's truck had her snapping out of her dream land a bit. As a result, she was able to make her brain work enough to snatch the keys out of the still dazed hitter's hand and make her way to the front door.

"Don't just stand there Eliot... Come on... I want to get some ice cream..."

Parker's voice retreating towards the front door had the hitter finally snapping out of it, his lips curling automatically into a soft smile as he shook his head in amusement at his little thief's antics. He smiled again thinking that it did indeed sound nice... His little thief.

And he followed her out of the house... into the sunlight.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: So there it is... another prompt done. Hope you guys liked it... please click the little blue button and tell me what you thought.**_

_**I love hearing from you and more prompts are also welcome. **_

_**I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Masked Revolt for all the amazing prompts... I heart you :)**_

_**Keep reading and reviewing...**_

_**Lotsa luv and cookies**_

_**MB**_


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